What's Dead May Never Die
by Mikoyasha
Summary: Jaime and Brienne recuperate at Casterly Rock after their encounter with the Brotherhood Without Banners in an effort to resume the normalcy of their lives. Guilt, Shame, and Honor aren't the words. But neither of them know what love is. BriennexJaime.
1. Oathkeeper

Oh, the fanfiction juices. How they flow! There seems to be a shortage of fanfiction for this ship. I hope to contribute to the masses that I hope will soon ensue! Brienne and Jaime are easily my OTP right now. I have so much affection for them, and honestly hope GRRM hopes to spare us poor shippers and let them just be!

This will contain spoilers for the books. Please enjoy. I intend for it to get more interesting in future chapters. Please leave a review if it pleases you!

Miko

* * *

_Chapter One: __**Oathkeeper**_

BRIENNE

Women. That's all she seemed to be mediating on for the past fortnight, hips, breasts. Now, as she gazed in the looking glass, she was once again disheartened by her ugliness. Her own breasts sat with a modest flatness, pale and terse. Her nipples lacked color, save for the flakes of white produced by the chafing of her leather jerkin. Her shoulders remained broad and mannish, the musculature toned and augmented after weeks of questing.

Brienne palmed her traps, which had blessedly shrunken in the past couple of weeks as her stress had reduced, as health had returned to him. She lined her cut abs with her lanky forefinger, ruing the narrowness of her hips. They were barely the width of her shoulders. And her legs, thick, white trunks planted firmly into her knotted ankles.

A rapid knock on the door shook the grimace off of her face.

"M'lady?" a woman's voice. One of the serving women, no doubt, _here to coddle me after my bath_.

"Yes?" she called brusquely over her shoulder, not breaking eye contact with her ungainly reflection.

"Might I be of any service to m'lady? Help you dress, m'lady?"

"That won't be necessary." She turned this way and that, attempting to create an illusion of grace. But there was nothing to enhance. She lacked the grace of a woman _or _a man, a gigantic, stiff, _beast of a woman._ She combed her straw-blonde hair off her forehead, patted it down and ruffled it again, only acquiescing as a bad taste began to coat her tongue.

She donned the normal, masculine wear. A faded pair of breeches and a light-weight under-blouse to go beneath her softened jerkin. She did not return to the mirror again, and when she opened the door, the serving maid had remained. When she caught sight of Brienne her lips pursed tightly and her neck stiffened. Her eyes were small and impatient, but grey with pity.

"M'lady, this is a lord's house. You are not to…" the serving woman huffed and tugged at her own thumbs, "That is to say, m'lady must not attend the lords dressed in such a way."

_How much more beautiful is this old serving woman,_ Brienne thought, distant, appraising the softness of her thick-leather cheeks and her shaky jowls.

"Is this a direct order from your lord?" Brienne asked wearily.

"I-I think it's an _unvoiced _expectation, m'lady," she replied breathlessly.

"When it is voiced, please attend to me." Brienne had no intention of addressing the lords being entertained at Casterly Rock, stuffy vultures that they were. She had no mind for politics, and while she had considered herself patient in the past, her temper had become less and less known to her as self-doubt and insecurity had eclipsed the fervor of her purpose. Guilt had razed her pride, clutching at her throat with long skeletal fingers. All thoughts of honor had gone flaccid.

Casterly Rock had impressed her when she'd first trotted up its gravelly slopes. She'd slowed to a lumbering walk, tried to fix the rhythm of her body to be in harmony with the waves breaking angrily against the great rocks—in harmony with the man gracefully swaying in saddle as they made the ascent.

From inside her chambers she could see the magnificent scope of the castle, great paths twisting downwards through the arrays of towers. Across from her room was a large western tower, whose stony back bore the brunt of the noon sun. And the sunset. At dusk, orange and pinks pulsated from behind its rocky shoulder blades, but the massive tower jealously stowed the great yellow pearl from her sights.

It was a sad view. She lost all sense of time looking out of her window. The western tower encased the lord of Casterly Rock's bedchambers. She knew which window was his, there was maybe a two hundred feet gap between the two windows, his thirty feet or so higher than hers. When she had first arrived in her chambers she had seen him there, leaning out, elbows propped up on the sill, staring, immobile, at his prized rock, as if memory had suddenly doused him. She had watched him for a while, but he had never looked at her. And that had inexplicably crushed her.

Every day hence she had gazed up at the window, chest constricting with guilt, but had only succeeded in memorizing each fold and shadow of his red velvet curtains.

_I am like a swooning maid,_ she thought bitterly, _with no beauty to show for it. Crooning for the forgiveness and affirmation of a prince._

Brienne hurried down a stoned, spiral staircase and walked quickly through a lavishly gilded entertainment room, a kitchen bustling with servants (the cook jumped with surprise when she sidled past him, splattering her leg with lukewarm broth), and a room ornamented with naught but candled chandeliers and an ashen fireplace before she finally stumbled into the huge western garden.

The garden was populated with lilacs and camellias lazily stretching towards the sun. Geraniums adorned the edges of the garden, trimmed neatly where the cobbled path led into the courtyard. In the center of the garden surrounded by a small stone hedging, Brienne recognized rose bushes. But no roses flowered there. She admired the garden for its intimacy, but the servants often lingered there, and the women often gossiped with each other under the dog flower tree and the men often suffused their laughter when she observed them entering from the courtyard.

She bustled along the path into the courtyard, pushing all thoughts forcefully out of her head. She jogged through large courtyard, heating under a sudden concentration of sunlight, through another open garden. When she reached the western tower she slowed to a walk, hugging its stately walls. Past it, the natural terrain once again emerged. A sooty gravel which felt nearly like sand. She followed the slopes downwards and then again down a flight of stairs, embedded in the ribs of Casterly Rock.

A long stony banister formed a semi-circle around the isolated balcony. Lion heads were engraved in its surface, and when she leaned against it their snouts poked at her stomach. She scent of salt filled her lungs as she inhaled and the exhalation left her with a longing for home. The sea here was assertive—safe, endlessly vast—and powerful. But the blue-gray waters could not be called beautiful. Not like Tarth, where the Sapphire Isle was so transparent and azure. Instead, Casterly Rock's sea conjured thoughts of distance. And the unbearable length of one's life.

_That night he shocked her. She heard the thump as he slid off his horse and looked at her from his static position. She turned, a spray of leaves brushing over her ear as her horse trotted beneath a branch. She yanked the reins and her horse stilled beneath her. The whole forest seemed to have stilled beneath her. And when she slid off of her horse she was aware of the tension between them, so viscous she felt as if she was moving through oil._

"_What is it?" she'd asked, throat tight. But he didn't say a word, only watched her approach. Unable to stop herself she continued to draw nearer to him, and when she was only a couple of feet away he began to walk forward, too. His motion scared her, so effortless and easy, and instantly she knew he was angry. She could see he was struggling to contain his emotion, jaw clenching and unclenching. He held her jaw and turned it, appraising the ugly scar tissue knotted under her cheekbone. He paused and looked her in the eyes._

_Then he'd wrenched Oathkeeper from its sheath._

"My lady."

Brienne lurched. The stone snout dug into her abdomen. She ran her shaky fingers across Biter's scar and turned around. A seasoned-looking man stood behind her. He had a well-trimmed beard and storm-cloud-colored hair. His eyes were lined with smile wrinkles. When he made a small bow the long chain around his neck dangled in front of him. He, too, was shorter than she.

"Maester," said Brienne politely. "I'm sorry, I do not know you."

"No," he started softly, "Aptly spotted by you, my lady, I am the maester of Casterly Rock. You may call me Maester Creylen. And you, my lady, must be Brienne of Tarth. I had recognized you by your… stature."

"Well-met, Maester Creylen."

He shifted to her right and the chain waggled like a grotesque, metallic wattle. "The sea that encircles Casterly Rock appears endless. It encourages a sort of pensive mood… what, pray, were you thinking about?"

_The pain I've caused._ "Tarth," she said simply.

"Ah, Tarth," he smiled at the wide waters, "I'm afraid the sea is not so beautiful here as the waters in Tarth. But I'm sure you will grow fond of them, all the same."

_He doesn't want to be rude, _Brienne realized as she eyed him, _But he's unable to look at me._

"How might I be of service to you, Maester?"

He turned towards her, hesitantly appraising her face. "I was sent to tend to your health."

"By whom?"

"Lord Jaime Lannister, of course, my lady."

The name sent a jitter up her spine, but she did not reveal the quickening of her heart save for chaste glance up at his tower. His window stood empty, but it was open. Red velvet did not conceal this one.

She gave a tight-lipped smile to the maester, then shook her head. "That won't be necessary."

"If you don't mind, my lady," Maester Creylen piped in, "But I should like to see for myself. Lord Lannister seemed to believe it was quite necessary. He did, in fact, mention this scar. He did not mention how you received it…"

"A bite," she said curtly. The same thing she'd first told Jaime.

Maester Creylen was aghast. "A bite! My lady, that is most grievous indeed. I should like to inspect it—"

"As you can see," Brienne interrupted, "the bite has almost healed. Jai—Lord Lannister was not aware of the exact timing of the bite, but it happened weeks ago. I fear a maester's touch will not improve it. As you can see, it suffers from no infection."

"The scar—"

"Will remain with me," she said sadly. "But please relay my thanks to Ser Jaime."

She swiveled to stalk off, but Maester Creylen grabbed her arm. "Relay? Lord Lannister was under the impression the Maid of Tarth would be attending his dinner ceremony tonight with the other lords."

She gently removed his hand from her arm. "I am unworthy of such an invitation. I shall soon retire to my chambers. Good day, Maester Creylen."

Brienne was not unaware of the Maester's kindness towards her; he had not visibly shrunk upon seeing her own physical grotesquerie. He behaved as well as any man was capable. Perhaps Jaime had warned him to prepare himself for a horribly ugly, unfathomably tall wench. If so, his advice had been noted.

After she stalked away from the maester back up the pale steps into the green garden overlooking the sea, she regretted her words. _I should not have been emotional. He will think my words snide, a selfish jibe._ She rubbed her forehead, then her eyes, feeling utterly spent with the day's nothings. She did not miss the nothingness of a lady's life. She was not a lady, she was a woman without prospects. Scorned by everyone, now, scorned by herself.

_I wonder how I so quickly became depraved, _she wondered miserably, glancing up at the iron sky. The flowers slightly wilted into themselves at the sun's absence. It was going to rain hard and soon. The clouds over the water looked so immense that it seemed they were going to blot out the Rock with water.

_I must leave this place,_ she thought, but when she entered the courtyard she looked glanced at her surroundings. There was a large archway leading into another area, leading into other paths along the lower-western edge of Casterly Rock's scaffoldings. Behind her, a tower, her tower with no doors at the bottom, only a couple of windows one or two hundred feet up. The storm seemed like the perfect moment for privacy.

She stood there for a number of minutes in the courtyard before she felt the first fat raindrop hit her nose and roll off its bulbous tip. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. She felt her eyelashes catch the water thirstily. Then quickly and mercilessly the rain battered down upon her face. Drops ringed her nostrils, flattened her hair against her skull.

The storm was meant to be a ritualistic ablution, meant to stave off emptiness.

_He grabbed her shoulders so fiercely she worried he might cut his hands on her armor. He could hardly look at her. He threw the sword down and it slid across the dry dirt._

"_Oathkeeper," he scoffed._

_She did not remember who instigated the wrestling. He grabbed her sword arm and yanked it behind her and she'd pushed his chest. Grabbed his stump and shoved it back at him, but he'd gotten her to the ground. She stopped fighting him, merely pushed at his chest when he straddled her and grabbed her face. She felt angry tears welling up in her eyes; she punched his chest but without real force. They both seemed to be aware that she could easily have overtaken him, yet he sat atop her._

_And to Jaime that was just an admission of guilt._

The storm was not violent enough for her. She tensed, suddenly aware of how cold everything was. She returned to the garden and pitied the rosebush, but saved two geraniums from the wet onslaught. She wrung out her clothes on the doorstep of the chandeliered room and then stepped lightly through the kitchen. The noise was jarring after the monotone sheets of rain deafening her. Servants scrambled around like mice, throwing disdainful looks her way, as if she was a big, lumbering obstacle.

She was. By the time she jogged up the stairs and threw open the door to her chambers, a new fatigue had gripped her. Her floor was damp where the storm had brushed through the window. She made no move to close it, but looked again through the window. The great western tower had shielded her window from much of the downpour. Jaime's window, though disturbed by wind, remained closed. A sigh escaped her lips.

A soft double-knock on her door. She could tell from the sound that she'd left her door ajar. She struggled not to groan in frustration. Could she not have any peace?

She turned. Her stomach dropped uncomfortably. "Jaime. Ser Jaime. Lord—"

"Enough, enough," he said flippantly, a smirk etched onto his face. He looked stately, beard freshly trimmed, golden hair combed and shining, green eyes, garbed once again in Lannister reds—

"Looking for me?" he asked, nodding pointedly to the open window.

"No," she said too quickly, "Don't be silly."

He frowned at her. "Oh, for heaven's sake. Why are you so drenched?" He gestured at her to close the window. She obliged, just for an excuse to quickly regain her composure. He was closer the next time she looked at him. He looked her up and down.

"You'll catch a cold if you stay garbed in your rainy-day men's wear," Jaime said, holding his hand out as if to say, _go ahead, take a good look if you don't believe me._ He made an exasperated noise while scanning the room. "Never mind, I'll call in your hand mai—"

"No. I grow weary of… servants and handmaids crawling about my feet." _I sound so… grateful,_ she thought sardonically. "But… thank you."

He ignored her thanks. "I could find a taller maid if it suits you, wench," he smiled, "Or perhaps a man. An armed man, who will duel you every time you must needs lace up your bodice."

She did not respond. With memory so freshly pulsing inside of her, she was too distracted for repartee. Instead she looked at absently at her bed and fingered the red blanket. It had been unmade the last time she was present in this room.

"What do you intend to wear, exactly?" Jaime drawled, indicating he'd grown bored of the pointless and quickly dying argument. "Or do you plan to attend dinner naked?"

"_Ser,_" Brienne said, "I will not be attending your dinner of lords and ladies."

"Ah, yes, Maester Creylen _did_ mention that you'd thwarted my advances. How lacking in chivalry you are."

She gave him a look. He was clearly enjoying himself, eyebrows raised, arms locked behind his back. "I don't enjoy being paraded about."

"But I rather enjoy parading you about."

"I've seen enough people flinching away from me for today," Brienne said stiffly, though not without some kindness. "Ser Jai—Lord Lannister, I know that you would enjoy the presence of the lords without my companionship."

He cocked his head. "This is a terrible way to repay a host for his gracious hospitality, my lady."

She refused to take the bait. She intended to say, "Shouldn't you be going?" but what tumbled off of her dry tongue was, "Shouldn't we talk?"

A second of silence passed between them and Jaime's posture did not change, but the smile did not reach his eyes, even when he suddenly laughed and said, "Good gods, whatever about?"

She would not lose momentum. The room was tangibly stuffy. The space between them too close, her face, she knew, abhorrently vulnerable. She knew he could see her. Could really see her.

"About Oathkeeper."

His eyebrows furrowed and he opened his mouth to respond when Brienne's handmaiden shuffled in through the open door and jumped when she saw Jaime. "M'lord! What are you—" she turned suspiciously to Brienne, then noted her sopping apparel, "M'lady! You're soaked!"

The servant curtsied to Jaime as an afterthought and he instructed her seamlessly to take care of the Maid of Tarth and see that she was dressed adequately for the dinner being held in the Great Hall. She nodded vigorously and Jaime gave Brienne a very intentional look that lingered for what seemed like a small glimpse of forever. The look was an enigma and it could have meant anything. But when he left the room and shut the door behind him, she immediately turned towards her window. When she saw it was shut, the knife twisted in her belly.

She realized she'd been clenching her fists when she looked down at her handmaiden impatiently towelling down her legs. Two geraniums fell from her limp hand. One and then the other. Two crumpled dead things.


	2. The Symbol

I guess it would be too obnoxious for me to send a box of cards to GRRM's wife, pleading with her to user her womanly charms to give us a happy ending for these two? ;)

Reviewers, you guys are the greatest. I was thinking, "Maybe I shouldn't be writing this," but then I get your messages and my head just combusts with ideas (and, of course, the shipper feels). I really hope you continue to enjoy this story. This chapter is for you.

~Miko

* * *

_Chapter Two: __**The Symbol**_

_Cersei._ He thought of her as soon as he sat in the plush, red-velvet lord's chair at the head of the table. He plopped his stump on top of the armrest: a violently gold lion's maw, grasping at the air. He removed his stump from the armrest. It looked as if the fiercely inanimate creature had been the cause for his recent handicap. He was already tired of the gold. As a child, he had loved it. Him and Cersei—they had been the golden pair, all beauty, born to be royal, born to be shrouded in riches. Now it almost pissed him off. It drew him out, tired him, conjured thoughts of Cersei fucking around, made him think of only nights ago when he'd been shitting in the woods while swinging over the back of the log, made him think of his hand. He'd offered them all of his father's gold and still they chopped it off. The only colors he seemed to remember were the browns of the mud, the browns of the nightsoil, the browns of the corpses, and the red. Pooling.

He rubbed his eyes with his left hand. He didn't know how to process any of it.

"Lord Lannister!" a robust voice rang out, "Looks like Tywin really did shit gold, eh?"

"It does seem that way, my lord." Jaime stood and gave a small bow, lacking the energy to resent the overly easygoing manner in which Damon Marbrand had addressed him. _It's his right. He did not think he would be rallied by the Kingslayer to this great rock._ More lords poured in behind him, relatively few in number, all Lannister bannerman. Some of them brought in their raucous household knights to fill the holes in the table.

Lord Baelish was absent, which was hardly surprising. He had not even thought to invite him until Littlefinger had sent him a brief and lilting letter, congratulating him on his newly acquired inheritance. Only a few men brought their ladies, and to Jaime, they all looked the same. _Overly enamored, breathless wenches and the occasional crone_. Some men smiled at him from the end of the table, having recently risen to lordship through dubious circumstances.

Jaime did not realize his hand had been lingering on the chair to his left at the head of the table until Lord Gyles filled the seat. He sat without arrogance, and nodded curtly to Jaime, who removed his hand somewhat awkwardly.

"I'm sorry that Ser Kevan could not be present," said Lord Gyles respectfully, "I'm sure he would have been very proud to see you in your rightful place as Lord Tywin's heir to Casterly Rock."

"My uncle?" said Jaime, bemused. When Gyles nodded, Jaime solemnly pushed a lock of hair behind his ear with two fingers. He realized that Gyles assumed the seat to Jaime's left had been for Ser Kevan Lannister. In actuality, he did not know why his hand had lingered there.

_I guess I had hoped she would come. To put an end to this endless drollery._

As he looked around him, smiling with all the grace of a king and all the charm of a prince, he noted that no Lannister had appeared. _Why did I think any of them would show up to help me pamper my own arse?_ They were dappled across the country like seedlings, all struggling to hold their own lands in the midst of war. _Clearly I've spent too much time bemoaning my own bloody circumstances to remember that I'm about to sup on roast duck in the middle of war time._

_Jaime, _the note had read, in hurried, inky curls,

_On your return from the woodlands, as you once again engage Riverrun, I beseech you, do not return to King's Landing._

The cooking wenches bustled from the kitchen, thin arms laden with meaty aromas, the fragrances of rabbit and beans, hot roasted boar, roasted duck glazed with pineapple sauces, and steamed, buttery potatoes.

"I have not eaten so well in what feels like years, my good Lord Gyles," Jaime said.

"Nor I, my lord," said Gyles, eyeing a fat loaf of freshly-baked bread, "No one has the money for feasts with all this trouble in the court. And in the field."

_There is nothing for you here. The Kingsguard is in shambles. I regret it, but… I must remove you from your post as Lord Commander. Your father wanted this, as well. He wanted you well-away from this pit of vipers. Mace Tyrell is the new hand, Jaime, I have his support in this. It is not for your lack of courage. Nor is it for you lack of hand. In fact, it may be a blessing from the gods that your hand is removed. Now we have precedence for this action._

A lady called out to Jaime, politely vying for attention. He did not realize it, at first. But when the serving maids began to circulate the room, filling each goblet with thick, dark wine, he noticed that many people near the end of the table were looking at him curiously. He raised his eyebrows, as if to indicate that he was now available for conversation.

"My lord," said the lady again. Jaime turned to her, a mousy little thing that he did not recognize. She had simple, straight hair, a small nose, and an average bosom. He only knew her as he knew her husband, who did not lean into her, but sat more intimately with her than the surrounding lords. Even him he did not particularly know well. _Now these lords and ladies are my concern. Now I must lick the masters' hands to curry favor._

"My lord," she said again, "Now that you're—that you're released from your vows of the Kingsguard, do you mean to marry?"

Jaime barked a laugh. It was something uncalculated. It spread warmth through the room and relaxed the crones' shoulders, but only he knew it was cynicism belting from his throat.

"No, my lady, I do not intend to marry." _The woman I loved to bed turned out to be a different creature in the daylight. _"I will remain celibate and allow my lands to crumple back into the rock; I intend to watch the sea weep for its elderly lord, a lord who dies refusing to beget a legacy."

Some laughter, some shifting glances were the only product of his bitter poetry. But it was all forgotten due to the presence of his heavy, red choice of liquor.

"Surely, you jest," said the lady sheepishly, a red blushing creeping up her neck.

"Yes, my clever lady, I only jest."

_You were raised to be Lord of Casterly Rock before your family was gifted with the burden of managing the kingdom. Your father never meant for you to be a knight, he had always intended for you to inherit Casterly Rock, the home that Joanna dearly loved._

_I know your… feelings for Cersei remain a sickening rumor to most, and I prefer to pretend it has no basis. You have always been brave, but overly rash and unguarded with your intentions and your affections. I pray you, leave that cub behind at Riverrun and return to Casterly Rock a lion. Gather your strengths at the Rock and hold your lands. There are hopes to take your inheritance from you, and if you are distracted, they will sneak up from behind and cut your throat._

The idle chatter continued noisily. He took a moment to survey the scene. In the end, drunken lords and ladies were not much different from drunken sellswords and drunken whores. They all colored the same way, they all spoke loudly with wine in their bellies, they all had a large taste for gold.

He pulled some duck onto his plate. He had heard somewhere that it was one of the more tender meats. He was easily able to separate the meat from the bone with his knife. Gratefully, he ate, letting the juices seep into the bed of his tongue and trickle down his throat, before chewing and swallowing with a swish of wine. He took the bread and let it sit near his arm for a moment. When it seemed as if none of the lords were looking, he took it under the table and struggled to pull some free of the loaf, while pinning it with his stump.

Jaime was successful, after a time, but he was so frustrated that he practically threw the bread back to its place, unmoved by onlookers. Luckily, most of the people in their wine-induced reveries were doing similar things, yanking haunch meat off with their teeth, slopping wine over the potatoes…

_As for your sister, I know of her letter to you while you were in Riverrun. She is unfit to see you. Let us just leave at that. The whole of King's Landing knows about her fornications, and I will not have them reminded of a time when Stannis sent word of her alleged incest. Do not stoke this fire, dear nephew. Go to Casterly Rock. Accept your inheritance. Help to stave off the ruin this war has brought down upon us._

_Ser Kevan Lannister_

He saw her poking her head around the corner and his mood instantly lifted. She stood there, avoiding eye-contact, like a beaten-down beast instead of a maiden. Her blonde eyebrows furrowed as she stood there picking at the neck of her dress. He knew it was only moments before she would change her mind and leave. But he did not want to embarrass her, so he did not raise himself from his seat. Instead, he stared at her over his goblet. When she _finally_ made eye contact he widened his eyes expressively, pinched his eyebrows together and jerked his head in the direction of the seat on his right, as if to say, _Don't even think about it, wench. Here, now._

Brienne shook her head out of exasperation, looking pointedly at the chair on his right, quite occupied by a plump lord. She shook her head again and retreated a step.

Jaime, in turn, cocked his head at her and raised his eyebrows in silent warning. _She'll be attending this wretched feast whether she likes it or not._ He beckoned a beaming serving maid away from a courting knight, who was smiling too much for the serving maid's good.

"M'lord?" she said, bowing her head.

"Fetch a chair… ah, _discreetly_ for the Lady Brienne of Tarth," he gestured to her, sulking in the corner, with his stump, "And sit her down right here." He tapped the table to his right with his cauterized wrist.

"As you say, m'lord."

Moments later Jaime saw the maid hefting a large, wooden, wide-backed chair to the head of the table. She inhaled twice before she delicately plunked it beside him. Nobody seemed to take any notice but Gyles, who watched Jaime inquisitively, but did not speak.

There were an extra thirty seconds in which Brienne seemed to grapple with the thought of willingly attending a Lord's feast, but she finally removed herself from the wall. She stalked, eyes down, the humiliating fifty feet that spanned the length of the table from head to tail. He appraised her with a smirk. Her fidgeting handmaiden had dressed her in blue, as he'd requested, and had padded the bodice. The dress did the rest of the work: long, flowing sleeves hid the mannish musculature of her neck and shoulders; the length of the dress hugged her slight curves, accentuating them while consequently hiding the strength of her calves in a long blue tread.

_I did say I like to parade my wench about. _The way she walked didn't help, however. She walked like a knight, stiffly and with purpose, as if she meant to rip out the throat of the poor fat lord beside him, but lacking the confidence of a knight of her ability. When she plopped in the chair beside him, she did so gracelessly. He half-expected her to curl up into a ball and die in her chair.

A part of him felt sorry for making her go through these tortures. But it was a very small part.

"You look lovely," he told her grinningly. He felt the energy thrum in his veins. He was finally waking up from his hour-long stupor.

"Enough_,_" she grumbled, face somehow reddening and blanching simultaneously.

Moving the huge, wooden chair discreetly did not seem to have the intended effect. Indeed, no one had noticed the chair, but the big, hulking woman drew everyone's eyes. While she looked more womanly, she still looked in many ways incapably ugly, a gigantic woman lumbering about as if she was a man, with the hair-length of a man, to boot, and they hadn't even seen the scar. It was a small kindness, one she probably would not even realize he had given her, seating her on his right. In any case, she wore a bandage, so it was not extremely gallant on his part.

"And who might this be?" asked Marbrand, leaning over his bread to give a puzzling and reluctant smile to Brienne, who did not look anywhere except the twelve inches of table directly in front of her.

"This," Jaime said, "This is my very _tall _friend, Lady Brienne, the Maid of Tarth."

"Brienne the _Beauty?_" asked a knight skeptically, the one who had been courting his maid moments earlier. "But isn't she supposed to be, I dunno—"

"Clearly, you don't know the story," said a new lord, two seats from him.

Brienne stiffened, shoulders hunched, visibly withdrawing into herself. He could see her regretting each second more and more as time passed, as each scowl and ill-concealed mockery reached her ears.

"And, Lady Brienne," started Lord Gyles, "I did not think that you were married… that is to say, if you are not here with your husband, why are you here, exactly?"

"I am not married, Ser," Brienne said bitingly, "I'm here of my own accord."

"As a guest of the Lannisters," Jaime finished quickly, smiling. "She was a great asset to me when I was at Riverrun. And a mutual friend of ours was wounded. He is here recuperating. She will soon see him back to King's Landing."

The last part was a lie, he had no intention of sending her back to that cesspit. Unless he went with her, of course. And a part of him did want to go. A part of him wanted to jump astride his horse brandishing his sword and go see his sister. Whether it was to witness her shame or to see, for himself, if she ever really loved him, he was not sure. _Do not stoke this fire, dear nephew._

The questions died out when they could perceive no other mystery. She had not come garbed in mail, so they did not think her a threat, and she was not pretty enough to be a whore, so no scandal had kissed their pretty ears. All seemed to be exactly as he'd said.

Lord Gyles did not seem convinced, but that could just have been a fascinated revulsion that stayed his eye on Brienne's marred visage. Jaime took a swig of wine and let it sit on his tongue. Then he called for an extra placement. Once a maid had set a plate in front of Brienne, Jaime tossed her some bread and ripped the legs off of a rabbit and placed it onto her plate.

"You must eat," he said, "This is much better than salted squirrel, I assure you."

It took her a few moments of stubborn silence, but Jaime was well-equipped to deal with her obstinacy. In this case, he knew that he should just let her hold her sullen silence, and then prod her when she had internalized the insults. _We each have our burdens,_ he thought, not without some humor, as he attempted to use his stump to pull bread from the loaf again.

Brienne saved him the exertion, callously tearing a hunk off and handing it to him. His face twisted into a half-grimace, half-smile.

"Kind as ever, my lady," Jaime said, biting into the bread, "But I don't need your pity."

"Shut up," she sighed, "I wasn't pitying you. I tore some bread for myself, hungry after debating whether or not to come to this draining debacle… and you snapped it up like a fat crow." She tore another piece.

Jaime could not help but laugh. And laughing felt so good, he almost didn't mind the sharp pains in his fractured ribs. He pushed his own goblet towards Brienne, as none of the servants stood near enough to attend him.

"Try some of _this_ Lannister red," he said.

And she did.

_They wrestled on the ground for minutes and minutes. She barely defended herself and never went on the offensive. She just let him grab her with his one hand, let him exert his anger. At last when he sat atop her, pressing his hand and his stump into the sides of her face, she had begun to cry. The sight was abominable. All of his emotions seem to drain, leaving him dry suddenly, and weak. _That's all I wanted,_ he thought, _to see you cry.

_She did not weep, but she shuddered with her tears, watching his face. He knew she was bearing an immense weight, but he did not know the cause of it. He wanted to release her from the constraints of guilt. Some tiny, immaculate spot of honor remained to him. And he wanted to give that to her._

"_Where are you leading me, Brienne?" he asked her softly. "Do you mean to kill me?"_

"_I was going to tell you," she croaked hoarsely. Her nose began to drip as her lower lip trembled fiercely. "You must believe me, I would never—" she broke off, in pain as his thumb pushed into the purpling bandage on her left cheek._

_He had lowered himself onto her, cracking lips ghosting over her chin. _Brienne,_ he thought, _You are not a woman. You are… you are a symbol. _In his delirium his panting mouth had breathed over her lips. But when his upper lip brushed over her salty, lower lip her head jerked downwards to look at him and her horsey upper teeth nicked his prying upper lip._

_He grunted, rolling off of her. Out of his peripherals, he could see her chest heaving. He was oddly still. It seemed that she was whispering his name, but he took no notice. The reality of death knocked the wind out of him as he laid there. The moment of… the moment of battle had passed between them like a ghost._

He grimaced at the memory. It had been like a dream, full of hidden mysteries. How could he explain it to her? What he had wanted, that night, was to liberate her of the guilt of his death. He had wanted to die by her hand, honorably, the only hand by which he could imagine dying peacefully. She, perhaps, was the only one able to give him peace… he was not sure if he wanted happiness. Happiness was a treacherous mistress. But how could he convey that in words? How could he convey that _that_ was the meaning of Oathkeeper?

* * *

**Hey, guys, what did you think? It's hard for me to tell if a chapter like this meets your standards or not. If it suits you, please leave a review! I'm really fortunate to finally be part of a vivacious fandom (usually, once I join a fandom it's already dead...), I hope you continue to enjoy "What's Dead May Never Die."**

**~Miko**


	3. The Kingslayer's Whore

**Hey, guys! I'm here with a new chapter of "What's Dead May Never Die"! I'm really excited to be uploading again, I have so many places I hope to go with this story; both the universe and the characters are so complex, I have a huge heart for it.**

**Readers—and especially reviewers—you guys are what prompt me to continue writing, as cheesy as that sounds. Thank you so much for all of your feedback. You guys are so insightful. My only desire in writing this is that we can partake in a relationship that is so dynamic and full of feeling (together, united as JB shippers)! I hope to remain authentic while also providing you with an interesting glimpse into the possibility of romance.**

**I am a student and studying a lot in my down time, so I may not be able to update as soon as I would like, but I think about this story often and have plans of updating regularly. In the meantime, please enjoy!**

**Miko**

* * *

_Chapter Three: __**The Kingslayer's Whore**_

BRIENNE

She flinched at the contact, jaw clenching as his thumb pressed against her cheek. He held a small, ovular looking glass near her eye at an angle. She saw that the flesh, unsurprisingly, had turned a purple-saturated red. It clumped erratically below her cheekbone, knotting where the biggest gaps had been. The most sensitive parts of her cheek were the knots; they looked like bulbs of root tangling beneath a pasty field.

He touched her cheek again, with his middle finger, and her cheek throbbed. But it was less painful at the second point, the greener flesh nearer to her nose. She hardly grimaced. He brought the mirror closer to her face and angled her chin towards it so that she might see more clearly the second wounded patch.

"Does that hurt, my lady?" he asked her solemnly.

"Some," Brienne said.

His hand, again, angled her chin away from the looking glass. His fingers hovered over the ghastly flesh. She watched his freckled, hairy knuckles in the reflection. She saw that he hesitated to touch her wound again, but instead grazed the tender skin beneath it, so as not to hurt her unnecessarily.

"And which time, when I pressed, did it hurt more, my lady?" he asked her pointedly.

She stared stubbornly into the reflection, not meeting his eyes. "The first time."

Maester Creylen laid the mirror beside her after a pause, and she was forced to look up at him. He was grimacing down at her, mouth twisted in concentration, dark eyes squinting as he pulled her chin towards the sun ambling through the window.

"As I've told you before, wounds like this simply do not heal on their own," said the maester.

"As I've told _you_, Maester Creylen," Brienne retorted flatly, "I was low on medical supplies out in the winter wilderness. I hardly had food, let alone… facial creams."

He sighed, fat eyebrow tufts furrowing over his narrowed eyes. "My lady, I simply meant to convey to you that there is _some_ urgency regarding your health. No, you are in no danger of dying. But it would have been wise to consult me in order to minimize the risk of infection."

"Is it infected?" she asked. _Something new to lose sleep over._

Maester Creylen shrugged. "No, my lady. But that's due to pure luck and nothing more. Bites are notorious for instigating infection. The mouths of wild animals can carry any number of diseases."

_It was a man,_ she thought, _a man that sank his teeth into me._

Brienne fidgeted. She was slightly uncomfortable, laying here before the maester dressed as a man, all ugliness in plain view. She was oddly naked under his discerning gaze. She was not accustomed to men looking down at her, not even maesters. Though, she would not lie, she'd coveted a sense of smallness ever since she was a girl.

"The first time I touched your wound—this purple one, here—" he briefly lifted the mirror, "this one is not healing well. It's remarkable your body has patched you up so efficiently. There is still quite a bit of healing to go through, but there's no use stitching you up now, is there? Well done, well done… now this green patch, here? This is what your bite should be looking like around this time frame. Our goal is to get this nasty purple to a more green hue for now, my lady."

Brienne steeled herself when Maester Creylen stood from her bed and gestured for her to sit up._ It is no time for self-pity, Brienne,_ she told herself, _you have always been ugly._

"That's it, my lady," said Maester Creylen as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, "In any case, it is good that you have become familiar with the notion of scar tissue. Your face will be badly scarred, there is no getting around it."

Brienne was aware of extreme exhaustion gripping her. She watched the hunched maester stride to the other side of her bedroom, long chain beating his red-robed belly. She felt even less a part of this world. Some part of her knew that she would feel this way when faced with the reality of permanent facial marring. Knew that, when she confronted her scar, it would be a reminder of who she could never aspire to be. _Why am I playing the lady? I've known since I arrived here that I am meant to die out there. With Oathkeeper in my hand. _Casterly Rock was a silly dream and nothing more. Out there—in the blood—did it matter how much face she had left to her?

He returned to her side with a small, cylindrical jar. Maester Creylen unscrewed the lid and dug two fingers into the thick, yellow paste.

"You will scar, my lady," he said grimly, "But there's hope in reducing some of the afflicted tissues. We might end up with a smoother cheek, you see?" He gently dabbed the paste onto her cheek. He first swirled a generous amount on the purple areas, then smeared the remainder onto the green.

"What's the point of this, Maester Creylen?" Brienne said curtly, "Whether a scar is round or square, long or short? A _long _scar has never been regarded as more beautiful than a short one."

"Perhaps not, my lady," he said wearily, "But Lord Jaime seems to think it necessary, and I cannot help but agree with him. As for you, this was part of the deal, was it not? Have courage."

The maester began to apply an itchy, mossy substance to her cheek. The poultice smelled heavily, and conjured thoughts of embalming odors when he pressed it into her cheek. _The deal, yes, _she thought, _I'm doing this for Podrick._

She had snuck up to the young squire's room that morning, hoping she could snag a visit without the hindrance of attendants flitting in and out. She had been alone, yes, but when she'd twisted the doorknob all it did was rattle in her fist.

The first thing Brienne had done after realizing that Pod's door had been locked was storm through the outer courtyards into the Great Hall. The hall was stony and massive. Red banners wafted from the ceiling, sporting gold lions. A large table was situated at the head of the room, where the golden lord sat in a plush and gilded chair, golden hand resting on a small stack of documents.

She'd waited impatiently for Jaime, fidgeting in her dinted armor, on the outskirts of the court. Jaime had caught her eye as soon as she'd entered the lavish hall, and she'd seen amusement flicker in them, but she was forced to endure her rising irritation as Jaime attended a wine merchant from one of the outer villages. The banners had done nothing to cushion voices in the cavernous hall; due to the echo, she'd been required to listen to all of the merchant's complaints twice.

When he'd finally gone, Jaime had turned to her immediately, eyebrows quirked up at her from beneath the blonde drifting over his forehead.

"My lady Brienne," he'd said energetically, rising from his seat, "You looked to have had such _fun_ being drunk and boisterous last night, flirting with all those unsullied knights and lusty lords."

"You have a gift for storytelling, it would seem, my lord," she'd intoned.

"How glib," he'd sighed, "You've seen right through my jealousy, as I feared. I _do _wonder why a certain wench is so eager to see a certain lord after cajoling with said lord all night."

Brienne had reddened, choosing to ignore the mockery in his voice. She did not have the energy to battle him with words, he was always much better at that than she. Instead she'd glowered. "I've something to discuss with you."

He'd walked towards her along the lacquered, wooden table, shifting his golden hand to his hip. "Well, you've seemed to stumble into the right hall if it's discussing you want to do."

"I am up and about so early to see my squire," she'd said, "Podrick's door is locked. I assume he's woken by now. I mean to see him. Today."

Jaime had trotted down the four stairs of his elevated platform. "What a sneaky wench," he'd said casually, "I've instructed the servants to bar your way."

"Brienne," she'd said as heat licked up the back of her neck, "And for _what reason_?"

"See the maester." He'd cocked his head at her as if the question had just affirmed her idiocy. "If you want to nag at the poor boy, you're most welcome to. After Maester Creylen has sufficiently nagged at you. Just let him have a look."

Brienne had felt heat pooling in her ears, in her cheeks, as he strutted back to his lordly seat. She'd felt her muscles tensing in her shoulders and in her back. And when she'd called out his name, she had not intended for it to sound so desperate, she had not intended to alarm him, though it had, and that had jolted her. She'd wheeled on her heel, armor screeching, and left him, head fuzzy. All she could think as she had exited the Great Hall was, _I do not know myself. I do not know myself. I do not know myself._

Now, as Maester Creylen applied the bandage to her clotted cheek, she was annoyed with her own obstinacy. It had only benefitted her, seeing Maester Creylen. Her own insecurity had provoked a sort of defensiveness—a _pettiness_—in her that made her anxious. She ran both hands through her stiff, blonde hair, thinking of Jaime. He had changed so much since she'd first been charged with him. Just the thought of him made her bubble over with emotion. Anger, guilt, sadness, and pride all sloshed through her like hot liquid. _I have changed, too. I cannot predict my actions… I am an oathbreaker._

Maester Creylen patted her shoulder twice, indicating that she could stand. She did so. "I know that you do not like to appear vulnerable, my lady," he hesitated, "But consider your health for Lord Jaime's sake… and, more importantly, the boy's sake."

"I will," she said softly. "I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused you."

"My lady, I am a maester to the Lannisters," he said simply.

She smiled at that. "Maester Creylen, when might I be free of anxiety over this bite?" she gestured absently to her face.

"It could be any number of weeks," he said, rubbing his grey-streaked beard, "Your arm and your ribs are another matter. Hiding pain is not always necessary, you know. No one will think less of you. Luckily, I fear nothing is broken. Your ribs are bruised and you arm has a nasty fracture. I must insist that you do not engage in any swordplay or any other taxing physical activity."

"I understand."

"Good, my lady. Then you have Lord Jaime's leave to go and see the boy."

Brienne did not hesitate. She left the maester in her chambers and darted down the stairs, following a long outdoor corridor to another flight of stairs. It had been generous of Jaime to lodge Podrick in the same tower as her; the smirking lord seemed to think that she mothered him far too much. The thought had stilled her, on their journey back from Riverrun, that Jaime had seen that quality in her.

Now as her hand closed around the doorknob, she felt the satisfying turn of it in her grasp, and as it clicked, she pushed it open with her shoulder. Podrick sat up in bed, watching Brienne with saucer-wide eyes. Anguish doused her heart as she noted the ragged, noose-shaped scar around his neck. Dark hair brushed over his forehead and curled slightly at the bottoms of his ears. His face was pale, but blotchy with health.

"Podrick," she choked.

"Ser—m'lady," he said, nodding at her, "You look well."

She smiled at him and took a seat beside him on his bed. She was glad to see the windows open. Jaime's tower did not obfuscate the blue of the sky from this window. She could see the sea, and when the sun set, it would saturate the reds of Pod's room with warm pinks and oranges.

"You look well, too, Podrick. I am relieved to see you awake. And energetic."

Podrick glanced nervously from Brienne's face. "All that maester lets me do is sleep, m'lady. I only sleep so much because there's nothing to do but sleep."

"I know the feeling," she said warmly, resisting the urge to touch his knee or his shoulder. "Be lucky you don't have women flocking around you, stuffing you into dresses." _It is hard to believe, but he is almost a man._ His face, once so round and boyish, had narrowed. In just a few weeks he seemed to have grown too tall. _Perhaps I needn't have brought Jaime to Lady Stoneheart,_ she thought with some amusement, _Podrick has grown so tall that if they'd hung him, his toes would have grazed the ground._

"It can't be all that bad, my lady," said Pod sheepishly, "You have a chance to recover now."

"I am still recovering from the _last_ time I made a fool of myself at a lord's dinner," Brienne said.

"Recover physically, m'—m'lady," Podrick met her eyes, "Lord Jaime said the lords were quite taken with you at the dinner—err—that you gave them a show, m'lady."

"Grow some sense," Brienne sighed exasperatedly. "_Lord_ Jaime enjoys mocking me."

"Yes, m'la—ser," said Pod quickly.

She did not know what to do with her hands. Pod did not seem to know either. She watched him fold his left leg beneath his right. "Does Jaime visit you often?" she asked him in a softer tone.

"Pretty often, at first, m'lady," he said. "I think he welcomes the distraction."

_She begged with little dignity, nearly thought to go to her knees before Lady Stoneheart and scream for all of the lives that were going to be extinguished on account of her own carelessness. She did not weep, but felt the thick clog of emotion that ached in her throat. She was overcome by shame. She felt naked under the glare of her resurrected Lady, felt dirty under the wash of pity from Thoros's expression._

"_Please, let them go. I will do anything. I've done everything—do not kill the boy—he is innocent, he is just a boy. And Jaime—Jaime is changed, he is not the man he was…"_

_Like the smoke of incense writhing in the sept, a chant rose up among the Brotherhood Without Banners, and once again she felt as if she was in the bear pit._

"_Kingslayer's whore. You whore. Kingslayer's whore! Kingslayer's whore!"_

_She felt so _dirty, _so grimy and spent. An oathbreaker, a frivolous knight with multiple masters. _In that way, yes, _she thought, _I am like a whore._ Her loyalties where spread across so many; she had not thought that she could be so reduced. She had always been an ugly creature, incapable of evoking affection. But her honor had never been questioned, and now, even that had been forcibly taken from her. She grabbed her aching arm. Jaime had tried so hard to keep her honor intact…_

_Kingslayer's whore. Kingslayer's whore!_

_She turned to look at Jaime over her shoulder. _Don't be angry with me, _she thought. But nothing had rattled Jaime since he'd lost his hand. He was calm and collected, and when he looked at her, she did not see fear or anger or betrayal. Just weariness. And a resolution to die._

_Kingslayer's whore, Kingslayer's whore, Kingslayer's whore!_

"_Jaime!" she felt his name rip up her throat. "His name is Jaime."_

"Everyone craves a distraction, Podrick," Brienne said with a small smile, "How else do we cope with war?"

"M'la—m'lady," said Pod, "I crave a distraction. Could you maybe talk to Ser Jaime and see if he will let me—at least, err, explore Casterly Rock? Besides my travels with you, S-Ser, I've not seen much outside of King's Landing."

Brienne shrugged. "I don't see why not. But do not rush things, Pod, you'll have your fill of exploration all in due time. We just want to see that you're well."

"You rest, too, m'lady."

"I will," she said gently, "And I promise that as soon as we are mutually well, I will continue your training. You showed much potential, if I remember. It seems so long ago."

Brienne could not bring herself to not touch the young boy, so she grabbed his foot awkwardly and gave it a firm squeeze. Pod blushed, but gave a strict nod, affirming her comforting gesture. She did not know where it came from, but when Pod nodded she said, "I mean to continue my quest. To find Sansa."

She released his foot and rubbed her own shoulders, feeling relieved without the burden of armor. Here, in front of Pod, she felt comfortable. "I do not mean to make you come with me. We are both a long way away from recovery… attempting to journey now would be useless, and we would likely die. I do not mean to put you in danger's way again. It is your choice whether you decide to come with me, or to stay on as a… ward of Casterly Rock."

Podrick stiffened under the blankets and looked quickly out of the window. Noon had not yet hit the sky, but the late morning was bright and clear, and afforded Brienne a sort of mental clarity.

Pod did not say anything for several moments. But when he spoke, he said, "M'lady, when I ended up—going with you, I mean—I had been Lord Tyrion's squire. And Lord Tyrion left me, m'lady. I could have died—out there, I mean—had you not decided to take me on, Ser. M'lady."

Something tugged in Brienne's chest, and a surge of gratitude overcame her. For a moment, she lost her breath. _I had a purpose when I set out to retrieve the Lady Sansa,_ she thought, _And I will have a purpose again. Soon._

"I would not leave you," she said quietly.

"I think you proved that, m'lady," said Podrick, equally as quiet, but with a certain confidence that inspired pride in the clenches of Brienne's stomach.

Brienne nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a hand clench her shoulder gently. She glanced up and Jaime, along with Maester Creylen, stood above her. Jaime smirked when she shrugged him off and emptied her lungs of a cold exhale.

"You scared me," she grumbled.

"Yes," said Jaime, "I did not want to intrude."

"That's considerate of you," Brienne said flatly.

Jaime nodded to the maester, who bowed, chain wobbling beneath his chin, and exited the room. Podrick was clearly in no need of a maester.

Brienne turned from Pod to look up at Jaime. She liked that angle: looking up at him. He was… undeniably beautiful from any standpoint, she was realizing. And he appeared especially powerful to her now, green eyes glinting in the morning light, golden hair dusting lightly over his ears. The maturity in his eyes made something constrict at the base of her spine. "How long have you been standing there?"

He tilted his head. "Not long," he walked towards the open window, "But I gather you have a lingering desire for death."

_Please do not stand in the sun, _she begged him inwardly. She felt as if any sense of control was slipping like grain through her big, clumsy fingers. In the back of her mind: _Kingslayer's whore! Kingslayer's whore!_

"Why do you say that?" she said, more brusque than she intended to be.

Jaime met her gaze. "Does the lifestyle of a lady repulse you so much that even before you've regained your stamina, you're so eager to go out and be hanged again?" he raised his eyebrows at her, and then at Pod, as if the two had a mutual understanding about her tendency towards masochism.

Brienne pursed her lips. "I am not a lady. Every septa will tell you the same."

"I've seen enough of you to know that you qualify."

A blush shot up Brienne's neck and deepened the brown of her freckles. "Ser," she warned.

Jaime paid no heed to her growing discomfort. He ran a hand through his hair with his left hand, and leaned his golden hand against the window sill. "Or perhaps you hope to lose the flesh on the other side of your face, so as not to dishonor the left side?"

"Do not mock me, _Lord_ Jaime."

"Is that what I'm doing, my lady?" he grinned against the pulse of wind that drifted through the window. "Is there another explanation for your actions?"

Brienne rose. She noticed that Podrick had gone oddly stiff beside her. "I mean to keep my oath to _you,_" she said huffily, "by completing my quest to Lady Sansa. And then… and then…"

" 'And then?'" Jaime repeated, "You have plans to live, then?"

She touched her wounded cheek instinctively. "And then I plan to… to marry Ser Hyle."

* * *

**There you have it! I have plans for the next chapter, so it's only a matter of finding a good, solid chunk of time to sit down and write it. I hope you enjoyed it, if it pleases you, leave a review and let me know your thoughts. I know there are some mixed reviews on the pacing and things like that, but I am hoping to realistically portray their relationship in this way. Thank you so much for your support, and thanks for supporting such a great fandom!  
**

**Miko**


	4. My Life for Yours

**Another chapter! How about that Bear Pit episode? ;) Thank you all so much for your diligence and your kind words. I hope this chapter pleases you!**

**~Miko**

* * *

_Chapter Four: __**My Life for Yours**_

JAIME

He'd been distracted by the blue bird smacking into the window in the opposite tower; it'd bounced off, fell a few feet, and then had resumed its jagged flight around the building. He was almost sure that he had heard her incorrectly. But when he turned back into the boy's room, he saw the huge woman sulking, face twisted and shoulders hunched, as if the betrothal was a goblet of poison she was about to swallow.

"Ser Hyle?" Jaime asked skeptically, "Ser _Hyle_? As in, the Hyle who was swinging from the gallows with young Podrick here?"

"The very same Ser Hyle," said Brienne with a soft bitterness.

Jaime could hardly stop himself from smirking. The whole notion of the marriage was so absurd he could have laughed so hard his ribs would fracture again. He combed his fingers through his hair, stepping away from the window with a cocky sway which he realized he was suddenly emphasizing. He eyed Pod suspiciously.

"You little monster, you knew about this," Jaime smirked. He enjoyed the sight of Pod shriveling up in his bedclothes. _How very like your lady knight._

"I d-didn't think it was important, my lord," he said, "I-I hadn't thought my la—Ser—would accept, Ser. My lord."

"I suppose not," Jaime breathed, narrowing his eyes at her with growing amusement. She was flitting now, avoiding his eyes. Fidgeting with her tunic, with her neckline, rubbing her arms. _She's obviously not confident in this ridiculous engagement, otherwise she'd be sticking her neck out like a hen, glaring at me with an immovable will._ He stilled her hand as she went to touch her hair.

"No need to be nervous," he said.

"I'm not ner—"

"He actually _proposed_ to you?" Jaime interrupted. "He asked for your hand in marriage?"

Brienne yanked her hand away from Jaime's grasp. _I worded that poorly,_ he realized suddenly. "I know it may come as a shock to _you,_ Lord Lannister, that someone would propose to _me_ a great, hulking, ugly _wench_ with a great horror upon her face—but not everyone can be as widely-coveted as you are, Ser. It's so easy for you to say, when as soon as you've got your white cloak off, lines of beautiful women are _hoping and hoping _that their prospects are good enough to make you look at them twice. I must take what I can get."

Jaime barked out a laugh. _I'll take this angry, robust wench over that sulking, pitiable creature._ "'Widely-coveted'? I think you're being a little extreme. I've not seen this procession of beautiful women _you_ claim to have seen. I'm sure I would have taken notice."

"Don't be coy, Jaime," said Brienne icily, "It's no matter to me, but don't deny that you've not seen them swooning."

_I'm quite aware,_ he thought simply, but he had no intention of ending the colorful discourse. "I am lost as to what you are referring to, my lady."

Brienne stiffened. She chanced a glance at Podrick, who had regained his normal composure and was watching with mild fascination. "The dinner," she grumbled, suddenly doubting her previous assertion that Jaime had taken note of all of the women allegedly enraptured by him. Her hand returned to her straw-colored hair.

"The dinner," Jaime repeated, looking at the ceiling, hands planted on his hips in a mocking gesture of recall, "Are you referring to the dinner we had _yesterday_? The one in which all the lords and ladies were piss-drunk?"

"Oh, shut up," Brienne conceded, realizing the ploy.

"I have _never_ heard of anyone making a legitimate betrothal over drunken conversation—"

"_Alright—"_

"—is that how Ser Hyle asked for your hand, by the way? When he was too drunk to form words?"

Brienne stilled in front of him. He could see the anger knotting in her jaw line. He watched her as her form straightened and her chin jutted upwards, all the airs of honor, all the airs of pride. The thought that he'd riled her brought him some deep sense of satisfaction. He didn't know where it came from, why he wanted to potentially hurt her feelings. All he knew was that he didn't regret that way that she tensed like a wildcat. Maybe he would, later. Now, he did not.

"Just tell me about the proposal," he said softly, eyebrows raised expectantly, "Was it a declaration of love?"

"Please," she spat, "Don't take me for a fool."

"I take you for a highborn lady, who is confused about her purpose in this world."

She met his eyes briefly and he could see the wells of hopelessness in them. _Astonishing eyes,_ he thought, _I've never seen the like._ She plopped down beside Pod, who hurriedly moved his legs to accommodate her. She sighed long and hard and leaned her head against the bedpost. He could see sweat glinting on her forehead. The argument had clearly tired her. He liked the fact that he could still affect her in some capacity. As they'd travelled back from Riverrun, he'd been met with an all-encompassing silence, fueled on her guilt and self-contempt. Hardly anything he'd said had been able to puncture her fortifications for the first couple of days.

"He did offer to marry me," she said quietly, "He made it clear that it was for my land… my inheritance. He said it was the best offer that I would get… and that he would… bed me well enough."

Jaime snorted at her grimace. "You still want to marry that pathetic sod? After a proposal like _that_?"

Brienne shook her head. "You don't understand. I appreciated his honesty."

Jaime, with a jerking motion, flipped his hair out of his face. "So, to be clear, you're not going to just grit your teeth and bear the little shit, you're going to _appreciate_ the little shit?"

"I have no prospects!" she shouted, clearly growing more indignant as the conversation wore on. "Hyle was, perhaps, cruel to me in the past—"

Jaime grinned at her, then. Her obstinacy, while remarkable, was beginning to grate on his nerves. "So you have past evidence that he would be a poor match, and yet you ignore it because instead of hiding the fact that he's a shit, he's open about it? What did he do? In the past?"

She shrugged. "He was complicit in a bet to see who could bed me first. But he is contrite."

"You do seem to inspire thoughts of bedding, don't you, my lady? Perhaps he is contrite after the Maid of Tarth saved him from a good hanging."

"Even so."

Jaime decided to change tactics. _Since the wench likes honesty so much, maybe she'll speak to me plainly._ "My lady, you cannot think that you would be happy with Hyle Hunt. I will not deny that he is… grateful, perhaps, and that will increase his esteem. But he will not be kind to you, as you deserve. Perhaps you might like him well enough in the bedchamber… but he would not make you feel like a woman."

His last words, of all the words he'd said in Podrick's chambers, were the ones that inspired a blush to curl around the freckles on her face. "How do you define kindness, my lord?" she said, looking up at him brazenly with heat in her ice-blue eyes, "Perhaps you are able to illicit kindness from your family, those ladies. To me, a husband's kindness is… his lack of ill will. His sense of duty. His honesty. I do not expect a man to pretend to love me when he does not."

"Is a kind husband so rare in this world?" _Perhaps women like Brienne were made for men like Ned Stark, Jon Arryn, Stannis Baratheon. The most boring and dutiful men on Earth, even unto death._

"You want too much. I am not a child."

"Why marry at all?" he said simply, "Is there something stopping you from being a knight? With songs sung about you in great halls and at weddings to inspire other disillusioned maidens? Be a knight. Stay on at Casterly Rock." He said it to comfort her, but even as he grinned, he knew it was implausible.

Still, it was worth the affection in her gaze as she beheld him. If he was honest with himself, he realized he was being incredibly selfish. He missed the feeling of being valued, of someone having expectations of him. _She is just a conduit for my self-confidence,_ he thought bitterly, _should I strip her of her happiness for the sake of my dignity? Or does that make me like my sweet sister?_ He briefly considered what he had thought of, months ago, as he cautioned Brienne against fighting her captors: _if I was a woman I'd be Cersei._

"My father will be disappointed in me if I continue these dangerous antics," she said, snapping him out of his reverie, "I should marry, for his sake."

"That is another conversation entirely. I doubt you will survive another quest for the lady Sansa. Your father would be less pleased upon receiving your body, I should think." Jaime appraised her, watching the blush recede down her neck. The sight was oddly provocative; it was as if something intangible was eluding him. "I can find you a better match."

"You cannot, Ser."

"And what about the poor Podrick?" said Jaime lightly, playing on her weak spot for the boy, "Is he going to lay about the Sapphire Isle, wiling away his days as a squire for an inactive knight, whose only priority is mending gowns? How droll, even for so loyal a lad as young Pod."

He winked at Podrick, who had been listening to the conversation, but had been reliant upon the fact that the two seemed to have forgotten him. Upon being brought up in the argument, he tensed again, stiffening beneath the Lannister-red bed sheets.

"And we all know that you love the feel of steel, my lady," Jaime said, nearing her. He drew himself to her knees, half-tempted to edge her thighs apart with his own knee, just to see her flutter about like a great bird. He heard her breath hitch, and he thought, _this is new for you, isn't it? Looking up at a man?_ "Don't you love the feel of good steel, my lady? The weight of it in your palm? Cleaning it of its slickness after you've bested some poor bastard?"

Brienne's eyes had a temporary glaze to them, but he knew in seconds she would react as befit a maiden of her station, and would push him away and blush and stammer, and he was already so _bored_ of her defending Hyle. He did not think it would be a good match, he was sure he could arrange a better one given some time and flexibility, but if she was so eager to be a martyr, he could not stop her from sacrificing herself all the time.

He backed away effortlessly and motioned for Podrick to stand with his golden hand. It cast bright reflections across the room as he gestured. Podrick scrambled from his sheets. He was wearing breeches under his tunic, thankfully, and as he rose, Brienne also rose.

"I'll have you get dressed, Podrick," said Jaime, "There are some people I'd like you to meet."

Podrick nodded, clearly excited for an opportunity to be clear of his red dungeon. All he had been doing in captivity was sitting, laying about, and then, later, completing an exhausting journey astride a horse, only to rest for another couple of weeks. _I would not be surprised if all of his muscles have atrophied_, Jaime thought with some amusement.

"Do you require assistance?" asked Brienne.

"Not at all, my lady," Podrick said, "I'm perfectly capable. Truly."

Jaime and Brienne exited the room together, and Brienne drew the door shut behind them. He heard her following him down the stairs and into the outside corridor. When he turned to look at her, she was regaining her composure, but still flustered, looking this way and that, so as to avoid looking at the object of her annoyance.

"This is why I worry about you," said Jaime breezily, "So easily subjected to the charms of men."

Brienne chose not to take the bait. _She would not so easily affirm me, _he thought with mixed emotions. "Where are you taking the boy?" she said in clipped tones.

"To his death," said Jaime, spinning on his heel to overlook the wide garden in front of him. The roses were not in bloom, had not bothered to bloom since his mother had died, but the geraniums were marvelous. "I am taking him to meet my ward. It would be good for him to have some companions his own age. He can hardly utter a sentence around us _adults._"

"That's very kind of you, Lord Jaime," she said softly behind him.

"Hardly," he grimaced. Her doting was beginning to induce a sense of guilt in him. _I have not gained so much honor as you seem to think I have since Riverrun. _"A part of me just hopes to live vicariously through them."

"You wear duty well, Ser," she said with some tightness. He opened his mouth to respond, but he noticed the sound of her padded footsteps, and he turned, and she was walking away, down the corridor, not graceful, no, but lacking inhibitions, _I suppose it could be a type of grace,_ the way her long neck sloped, shoulders swaying with a certain rhythm, _she is not so unwomanly as she seems to believe._ He could feel his chest ache as he watched her figure growing more and more distant. He thought of his mother, walking along this same corridor. They were not so much alike physically or temperamentally, but something about both of those women had made him feel secure; something about those two women had made him feel wholesome and purposeful. He had forgotten that he had ever felt such a thing.

Podrick's mood had visibly lightened as soon as he'd seen the garden, the sun hitting the green with such intensity that it almost seemed to knock the breath out of the boy. And he was just a boy, though nearing a man's height, who had experienced so much darkness in so short a span. _That's war._ Jaime took a moment to stroll around the garden with Podrick, allowing him to readjust to the sunlight. Within moments, his attention had shifted, and he was eager to meet whoever Jaime had intended for him to meet.

The two took a sloping hill downwards, past the garden, until the grass turned, again, into gravel. He eyed the boy out of the corner of his eye, pleased with his excited expression. But he could not help thinking _my life for yours,_ in between snippets of conversation, _my life to save yours._ And he could see why the trade would have been easy for her, the boy was unsullied and innocent and excitable and affectionate. Like a puppy. And he, himself, was an embittered and maimed lion, with shit for honor.

_How unlike you, stooping to bitterness, _Jaime thought sardonically. Of course the trade had been justified. And even he knew that it was undoubtedly the hardest thing Brienne had ever had to do. And here he was, still in one piece. _My life for yours._ Who then, did she have the highest affection for? Would she do it again, if it came down to it? Would she have traded Podrick, if Jaime's life had been at stake? The answer was no, of course. The situation was too implausible to even think about. What would anyone want with a sweet boy like Pod, except to use him as leverage against a Kingslayer? _They were my sins they were paying for._

"So, Podrick, you were my brother's squire." Jaime interrupted himself from his darkening thoughts. "And I heard he owes you a great debt."

"I was his squire, my lord," Pod retorted bashfully, "I-It was no debt, it was my duty."

"It was selfless of you, in any case. And brave. I understand what the wench sees in you." They walked through another garden, in no particular rush. The training yard was not far, and Jaime was allowing Podrick to become accustomed to the grounds. For some reason, he had a sense the boy would remain for a while. He could not necessarily say the same for the Maid of Tarth.

"Is it strange, seeing me, a lord, in my own castle?" Jaime said with a smirk, "I am used to myself in chains."

"It is strange to see my lord outside of King's Landing."

"I agree," said Jaime. _Cersei._ "By all rights, Casterly Rock should have gone to Tyrion. He was the next in line, that was able to inherit anyway. I was a man of the Kingsguard. Tyrion would not have gotten into half so much trouble with whores had Father just given him what was his."

"Lord Tyrion seemed to enjoy his station at King's Landing," said Pod, remaining elusive.

"He made do with the cards he was dealt," Jaime smiled, "As you know. What do you think? Were you surprised when Lord Tyrion killed my nephew and then slew my father?" _This is cruel of me. He is just a squire._

"I—yes, my lord," said Podrick, though without the usual nervousness, "I…" _This loyalty is inspiring, _Jaime thought with quirked eyebrows, _Could Brienne have picked a creature more like herself? Or has she crafted him to be this way? I would not put it past her. The pigheaded wench can't sense the obvious maternity she embodies… and she think she cannot invoke affection._

"Say what is on your mind," Jaime said lazily, "You won't be punished for it." They had reached the central courtyard. The cobblestones felt unnaturally smooth under his feet. They ambled under the large archway and headed to the eastern grounds. Jaime led Pod through a small grove, somewhat quieted but the leafy shade.

"I-I never thought that Lord Tyrion killed King Joffrey," said Podrick hurriedly, "I mean, the trial went badly, but—and anyway, if Lord Tyrion _had _wanted His Grace dead…" he trailed off pointedly.

"I know," Jaime sighed, "He would not have left nearly so many clues behind. That was always my sister's talent." _If I was a woman, I'd be Cersei._ He thought of the stench that clung to his nostrils as the Mad King loosed his bowels when Jaime impaled him; doused in that hot blood, he'd ascended the throne.

"My lord," Podrick said suddenly when the training yard came into view, "When… when we were captured… I just thought you should know… My lady begged them for your life. She… was willing to die for you, Ser. That's why we had the nooses… that's why we've got these scars, my lord. My lady—she—she, at the last minute changed her mind. So as to save our lives. But she was willing to die for you. I just thought that you should know… m-my lady—Ser, my lady often seems black and white. But her decisions are never that easy. I just thought you should know. She'd never say it."

Jaime did not quite know how to react. _I know, of course I know._ He'd known when he'd heard them chanting _Kingslayer's Whore,_ known that she'd aligned herself with him in spite of the obvious consequences. Even as she pleaded for him on the floor of that clearing, he had known that the Maid of Tarth would have rather died for him than break her oath. He had chosen not to think of it at the time, his mind infused and sharpened by the thought of death. _You so easily throw your life away, my lady. I must teach you to value it._

Pod was looking at him expectantly, and so Jaime gripped his shoulder firmly. He was grateful that that was the only reassurance that Podrick seemed to need. The two appraised the large yard, which was very grassy and enclosed by stone walls. Jaime gestured to the small armory to the left, in the corner of the large eastern wall. In front of the door stood two boys, chatting with each other while idly tapping swords against their booted toes.

"Gossiping, are you?" said Jaime as the boys' heads swiveled towards him, "Been spending too much time in the servants' quarters, perhaps." He pushed Podrick lightly towards the armory door.

"Podrick, this is Peck, my squire." Pod was almost twice the width of Peck, although they were at an even height. It had been weird reclaiming the boy as his squire when he'd returned with Brienne to King's Landing—before all of this—he was hardly a knight anymore. He had about as much need for a squire as he did a sword.

"And this is Hoster, my ward, son of Tytos Blackwood," said Jaime nodding in his direction, "And here, ward is a sweeter way of saying hostage. Nonetheless, I mean him no harm for the time being." The boy dwarfed them both in height, a huge and gangly creature, not sure what to do with his limbs.

Hoster looked at his feet dutifully, then down at Podrick. "You can call me Hos."

"Pod," said Pod.

"Well, now that you have some companions I'll leave you to it. I've set up no arrangement with the master-at-arms, but given some time, training will be made available to you. All of you."

Hoster resumed looking at the ground, but Jaime knew he was as excited for the opportunity as the other two boys, who were openly beaming. _I remember a time such as this._ He left them, not overly eager to see them enjoying themselves, as he'd allowed Brienne to believe. The boys brought memories washing over him like the grey water beating at the teeth of Casterly Rock.

Jaime thought of Joanna as he walked through the shaded grove again. Because Casterly Rock had lost all of its softness. And the Lannisters had lost any sense of cohesion, they had become monstrous in the night. Soiled children bickering in their filth. Never before had he ached so much for his mother, nor for his little brother, a boy so desperate for love. He was sure Joanna would have indulged him. Their whole story could have been different, it could have been beautiful. Cersei never would have fucked him and he would have never slain the Mad King.

As he swept through the courtyard and ascended the grassy knoll, he breezed through another one of his mother's gardens and made his way to the Great Western Tower, towards his chambers. The ground turned to grit beneath him, _mother always loved to pretend that we could make something grow on this rock_, and he felt the wind from the sea beat more ferociously at his face.

When he rounded the tower, he caught a glimpse of the very tall Maid of Tarth and smirked. She was in her usual spot, leaning against the ornate, stony banister carved out of the side of Casterly Rock. He watched her for a while, fascinated by her moments of softness when she felt alone. He thought about leaving her in peace, but he was not a selfless person, and he descended the stairs he'd descended so many times.

She turned to greet him, an instinctive smile on her face that made his lungs feel tight. She hid the smile as her fortifications began to rise around her rapidly. Jaime noted a handkerchief to her right. It had some morsels in it: bread, cheese, salted fish.

"Taking lunch outside, my lady?" said Jaime, leaning over the lion-headed banister beside her, "It is a beautiful day."

"Do you like fish, Ser Jaime?" asked Brienne, breaking off a piece and popping it into her mouth. She did not seem the least concerned about her lack of formal etiquette, and Jaime was not concerned either. It seemed to be a liberating and sensual experience for her, transporting her in time.

"Not particularly."

"I ate a lot of fish growing up on the Isle, I find many people in other parts of the world do not take to it as I do." She gazed over the waters. The sun hit them mercilessly, creating a sea-wide glare which seemed to light up the entire world.

"We could start introducing more fish to our meals, if that pleases my lady."

"That won't be necessary, but I thank you."

Jaime turned to her. He rested his golden hand on the banister and felt the sun heating it near his wrist. "Brienne," he started.

She consequently turned to him, blonde eyebrows furrowing. "Lord Jaime."

"Right now the sun is heating my golden hand, and it's glinting marvelously like some unearthed treasure," he said.

She tilted her head to the side slightly, lips parting to speak.

He spoke before she could. "It is beautiful, isn't it? And still, it is nothing compared to the miracle of that sun hitting your eyes. I look at them and I can imagine the blues of the water surrounding the Sapphire Isle. Look at me," she had lowered her eyes in the face of his compliment, "It saddens me to think of them being wasted, closed under the putrid body of Ser Hyle."

He broke off a bit of salted fish and popped it in his mouth as she had done. It reaffirmed his dislike of it. It was too salty and tangy. He broke off another piece and chewed. But, he considered, like most things, it was probably an acquired taste.

* * *

**What did you guys think? I meant to taper off this chapter like 1,000 words ago, but there was too much I was hoping to accomplish in this chapter. I hope the length didn't put you guys off. If you can, please leave a review and let me know what you guys think! You're very important and motivating and I hope I can continue to afford you some decent JB feels.**

**~Miko**


	5. Rosebud

**Hello, all! Back with another chapter. This is what happens when I don't have academic obligations—I just think of Brienne and Jaime all the time. It's quite a sad predicament for me! Haha. Back to class tomorrow, though! Anyway, this chapter was supposed to come a bit later, but I've done some rearranging and I think it fits better here. Thank you for your kindness and encouragement! I hope you enjoy this installment!**

* * *

_Chapter Five: __**Rosebud**_

JAIME

His dream felt sweaty and grimy, and the darkness was thick and inhalable. The vicious woman stood before him in between the shadowy cleft of the trees, glaring with such force he felt his breath quicken. Her face was grey and haggard; the pale flesh drooped beneath her piercing eyes and around her crusted mouth as her face twisted into a scowl. The deadened red scars tore across her cheeks and her eyes, _this is unnatural, _the only true marking of Catelyn Stark.

"Lady Stoneheart," Jaime barely muttered, as he took in the white wisps of the dead woman's hair and the thick red smile sliced across her neck.

Lady Stoneheart grasped her throat with her hand, and a terrible rattling whisper left her mouth. "_Kingslayer._" The word chilled him. It seemed to settle in his lungs like stones. Brienne had warned him of the haunting woman, but it had not prepared him. His strength suddenly wavered and a ghostly sweat lathered his armpits. _How do we fight the dead?_

"You, a band of brigands, take orders from a dead woman?" Jaime said, looking pointedly at Thoros, who was eyeing him levelly. He looked much older than Jaime remembered, weary and leathery and compliant. More importantly, he appeared wizened, _and that could be useful._

"Aye," said Thoros evenly, "We are the Brotherhood Without Banners, but before we were Ned Stark's men. And now here stands his lady."

The dream shifted and Brienne was kneeling in the center of the clearing, begging for his life. She wore no armor, just kneeled there, a weeping mess, clawing at the dirt, agonizing over him. He felt something powerful overtake him and he wanted to drag her from the center and shield her, tell her to run away, that he would rescue the boy and everything would be okay. But as he opened his mouth, Stoneheart's eerie hiss cracked through the night, stilling him, as she echoed Brienne's call for trial by combat.

The crackle of the flames seemed to mimic her assent as the clearing grew hotter. Jaime felt sweat pooling at the base of his neck, and when he looked at Brienne she had risen; she was no longer that woman tormented on the ground, but she stood tall, no trace of emotion lingering on her face as her body opened up into a knightly stance. The reds in Oathkeeper reflected across her scarred visage, making her eyes sear with an inhuman determination. Her shoulders were tight and pulled back and her hips jutted forward slightly, the very image of confidence. Jaime was gripped by unease as Lady Stoneheart commanded something else in a sharp whisper, and a broad-backed young man shouldered through the lines of greasy onlookers.

_Robert's bastard,_ Jaime thought suddenly, struck by a certain dislike for his grimacing face. He held a poorly-made sword with a less impressive grip, and his stance almost seemed to indicate that he had never even witnessed a sword fight before.

"Renly," Brienne gasped as she watched him approach, and Jaime's confidence plummeted. The huge woman turned to him, long neck warmed by the light. Her jaw was set and her eyebrows completely relaxed. _She is the Warrior incarnate, _he realized suddenly, _the Warrior is a woman. _He had never seen such grace. And her eyes were aflame in the clearing and sent ropes of tension through his body. He had never noticed her eyelashes, blonde and long and straight as they batted once, twice, then she turned to the boy, wrist rotating as she snapped Oathkeeper through the air like a slaver's whip, and opened his throat. Thick shadows spurted out of the boy's throat and he convulsed as his knees hit the ground. Globs of black tar oozed out of the wound, and then congealed in the corners of his eyes, and then sludged through his open nostrils. And as the bastard's head hit the ground, a roar flew up among the Brotherhood as Thoros declared Brienne the winner.

Jaime's heart fluttered with disbelief at his luck, even as Stoneheart's hard screech gnawed at him and the chant of _Kingslayer's whore, Kingslayer's whore! _wafted over him like smoke. _Brienne,_ he thought, _the gods do exist,_ for she had looked nothing short of a goddess as she sliced open the bastard with Oathkeeper. An unbearable sense of pride filled him as he turned about the clearing to look for her—for she had gone from her spot in the center of it.

Then there was silence from the Brotherhood. All he could hear were the sounds of low moaning: a woman's moans. He turned around and he was in Winterfell, far from the high taunts of the Brotherhood. He recognized the tower as he stared out the arched window. There was no light in the room save for the white daylight, and as he looked over the green tops of the trees, the sound of breathing behind him quickened.

When he turned to find the source, heat brushed over his face and pooled in his abdomen. Hyle Hunt was taking Brienne as he'd taken Cersei, from behind, thick, dirty fingers gripping hard into her hips. Hyle made a strangled noise as Brienne moaned, and he pulled her up by her pale shoulders as he gyrated. He pulled her into himself, tucking his right arm beneath her breasts, which appeared larger in the white sunlight as he hugged her ribcage tightly.

Jaime looked away from the scene with a sense of twisted and perverted jealousy, and then the dream shifted and _he _was in Hyle Hunt's position, rhythmically taking the broad-shouldered woman. The sight was increasingly provocative and almost unwillingly he was biting down on her freckled shoulder, taking in the scent of her individual musk. Her head tilted back and her straw-colored hair brushed over his neck and he lurched. He was beginning to lose control of the rhythm, he almost didn't feel as if it was _really_ him, or _really_ her in the tower. He nuzzled her neck and cupped her breast with his right hand. Brienne tilted her head towards him and his chest constricted at the sight of her lidded eyes. She grazed his earlobe with his teeth.

"Jaime," she whispered huskily in his ear. He felt his eyes roll slowly back into his head.

And then he was being wrenched up by the collar, and Hyle Hunt stood smirking before him. Jaime grasped at the edges of the window as his back hit empty air. Hyle shook his head and gripped Jaime's shirt more tightly. "The things I do for love," he said, and shoved Jaime out the window. He felt his stomach lurch sickeningly as he fell through the window, and watched with terror as his feet kicked at the air.

Then he woke, jerking from his bed, panting as he recovered from the illusory fall. He clutched his chest and his fingers felt his heart hammering beneath them. The first thing he thought as he rubbed his eyes in the dawn light was, _I will never feel a breast in my right hand again._

As he adjusted himself to the morning he felt increasingly strange. Both he and Brienne had taken on extreme personas in the dream; the meeting with Lady Stoneheart had not gone that way at all. Brienne had lacked grace in the battle, much as she did at all other times, and he had not had a spiritual experience, nor had he fucked her in celebration.

Jaime sighed in annoyance at the tent in his breeches. He stood by the window, watching the great sea as he willed his body to cool down. It did within minutes, as he lost himself in memory. _Cersei,_ he thought, but the name left an even more bitter aftertaste than usual. _Brienne._ The name sounded foreign reverberating in his mind. He thought of her lidded expression. She had been such a beautiful creature in the throes of pleasure. An unreal creature.

* * *

He could not distract himself from the dream, even as he sat beside her, watching the master-at-arms kick around Peck with a wooden sword. Brienne always watched intensely, and though she never encroached upon the territory of the master-at-arms, she appraised his methods stonily and and with immense concentration. It made the whole event very dull for Jaime, but he attended because he enjoyed her company, although it was mostly silent, and he hated listening to the daily whining of the people in Lannisport longer than he cared to.

Jaime watched her with little discretion. She was slightly wincing as she massaged her upper breast at the juncture of her armpit. _Tender,_ he thought distractedly. He had seen her do this many times before, especially on their trip back from Riverrun, in the nights, when she deigned to remove her armor. Never had he considered it especially provocative, given her grimaces and lack of sizeable breasts. But even now, through her tunic, her breasts appeared augmented. _Swollen,_ he thought, and her body had a rounded, flushed look to it. He noted her eyelashes. Indeed, they were long, but he only even noticed now because her eyes were lidded again; although this time she looked to be in more discomfort than pleasure, as the heat of the noon sun abused them.

Jaime tilted his head towards her lazily. "Brienne, is your moon's blood upon you?"

She unknowingly removed her hand from her tunic's loose collar. "Do you ask all ladies this?" she said flatly, turning to him.

"Yes," he said breezily, "I thought you said you were no lady, in any case."

"Nevertheless, I bear a woman's burdens."

"So you _are_ on your moon's blood," said Jaime brightly.

"No, I'm not," she furrowed her eyebrows, "Why do you ask?"

Jaime ran his tongue over the front of his teeth. _Fertile, then._ "You appeared to be uncomfortable. I know women's… women often suffer from soreness during certain cycles of the moon."

"What do you know of women's _cycles_?" Brienne said skeptically, refocusing her attention on Peck, whose wobbly stance was being corrected.

Her lack of indignation was indicative of her fatigue. "I know more than you think." Cersei's body, breasts especially, always became more tender a couple of weeks before, after, and during her moon's blood. _And she was always wilder in bed._ The thought of Brienne _bearing a woman's burdens_ lit something inside him; he found her sudden femininity very exciting. And the thought that it was buried deep inside of her, not open and available, made him feel privileged and strangely desirous.

_Am I hungering after the wench, now?_ He thought with some amusement. But there was no way he could openly deny her sexual allure, not after another dream in which she'd been naked. This time, he'd _felt_ her. And while her shoulders and ribs had been hard and muscled, her breasts had been small and doughy in his hand. Her neck had been smooth and warm. She had the body of someone he wanted to grab, someone whose body made him feel like more of a conqueror. Even in a dream she was capable of making him feel like a whole man.

_That was all a dream, Jaime,_ he reminded himself, _You've seen the wench naked before, never felt her._ Seeing her beneath Hyle, in his dreams, had only solidified his ambition to dissolve the betrothal between them. He had felt such a gut-wrenching jealousy and perversion at witnessing their lewd display of animalistic sex that he had resolved she would remain at Casterly Rock even before he had parted from the sweaty clenches of the dream.

There was something about her. _You are a symbol._ He was not attracted to her in the way he had been attracted to Cersei, someone who easily epitomized beauty and womanhood. She had been his other half, gorgeous and shrewd and wild and lusty. But part of his love for Cersei had been her exclusivity—he'd made the mistake of thinking that she loved him—in reality he'd been her pet. She'd lied to him. She'd fucked other men in her indiscreet attempts at clinging to power. She'd allowed him to idealize her, and he had idealized her without restraint. He had been too young to know any better.

The thought of Brienne had inflamed his loins that morning, and he could only partially grasp why. _Brienne loves me,_ he thought cautiously. Perhaps not in the way that he loved Cersei. But only something akin to love could bring someone to sacrifice their life so easily for yours. _The purest form of loyalty._ Only something akin to love brought Brienne back to that clearing to save Podrick. Jaime was obsessed with her _goodness,_ with her black-and-white nature, her lack of hesitation in doing what she believed to be right_._ He was attracted to her honor, something that had remained intact even throughout the heavy ordeals he'd bestowed upon her. _You are a symbol._ He thought back to his dream, how excited he'd been when he realized that she was the Warrior reborn. A chuckle escaped his lips.

"What is it?" said Brienne airily.

"_Do you have a little wife, ser?"the camp follower had asked him, scrambling for her shoes._

No, I have a sister,_ he'd thought. "What color is my cloak?"_

"_White," she'd said, "but your hand is solid gold. I like that in a man. And what is it you like in a woman, m'lord?"_

"_Innocence."_

"Nothing," said Jaime, "I just thought of something amusing."

Podrick was holding his own well against Peck; Pod was clearly the better swordsman. He had Brienne's habit of spending the first half of any fight in a defensive stance, watching his opponent with big brown eyes, exhaling with force as he blocked this jab or parried that swipe. He had an uncanny habit of puffing like a toad before exerting himself on an attack, however, and if Peck had been more observant, he would not have lost his footing to the other squire. But he did, when Pod charged him suddenly. Contact had not even been necessary.

Jaime caught Brienne beaming and he could not help smiling at her. He had hardly noticed her homeliness in the past couple of days. It was something that he often thought of talking about, but only to tease her. He knew it would make her squirm. _And now I can think of other ways by which to make her squirm._ He remembered with increasing regret the words he'd cast at her like stones. She had treated him amiably without fail.

"My lady," he started somewhat guiltily, "Tell me about your home."

Brienne turned to him with some surprise, remnants of a smile still dancing in her eyes. She looked away from him, _she's been doing that ever since I told her of their beauty_, back to the enclosed, grassy field, as Peck retired and Hoster rose to take his place.

"What would my lord like to know?" she said quietly, kneading her fist with her long fingers.

"Look at me," Jaime said brusquely, "Stop looking down at your hands as if we know nothing of each other. Have I done something to offend you?"

"No! No, Lord Jaime, it's just—" she smiled lightly and gestured vaguely at the air with her hand.

Jaime grabbed his chair from beneath and moved it nearer to her. She did not stiffen and that pleased him. _I get it, wench._ "I'm not going to revoke my compliment, you know."

She quieted and he knew he'd hit the mark. "I'm not going to look at you and think, _It appears I was mistaken, after all. They are just the typical sort of dazzling blue._ So let me admire them. While you speak about somewhere that you love."

He lifted her chin to face him with his good hand and allowed it to linger there for a moment. Subconsciously he pressed his hand to her scarred cheek and stroked it firmly with his thumb. Her skin was soft and smooth under his palm. _She has a unique fairness,_ he thought absently. When he felt her heating under his hand he removed it; he did not want to create awkwardness between them. But he did not have the energy to minimize the tenderness of his actions with a nonchalant grin. So he just watched the blush color her neck and waited for her to speak.

The silence was punctuated by a loud grunt as Hoster managed to catch Podrick's arm with the tourney sword.

Brienne mustered the courage to hold his gaze. "I-I think Tarth is one of the most beautiful places I have ever beheld," she began, "People always talk about the blue of its waters, but I never really understood it until I left home. Until I saw less beautiful waters. It sparkles like its bottom is layered with gemstones. Even the fish are beautiful and multicolored."

"One day I mean to see it."

"Yes, Jaime, everyone should—at least once," he warmed at the sound of his name on her lips, "Not only that, but farther inland there are gorgeous mountains. They are unlike the mountains in the north. They are grey-blue, as the sky is blue, and when you climb them there are slopes and slopes of grass. There are sunflowers that grow up to my waist—_my_ waist—unhindered by man. And there are whole hills full of wishing flowers."

_There it is._ Her eyes were alight with home. He was simultaneously struck by their beauty and his own regret for keeping her from that sweet island. _One day I'll take you back there._ He wanted to see her complexion as they set foot on the green island, wonders in her expression and a lack of inhibition in her body as she embraced her father.

Brienne gripped his hand excitedly. "Have you ever seen a waterfall, Ser Jaime?"

"I cannot say that I have," Jaime grinned.

"There are waterfalls all over Tarth," she told him breathlessly, "And even a couple not an hour's ride from Evenfall Hall. They are wonderful, when they fall over the small cliffs. And they sing with such power. It is the best place to go if you hope for that wonderful, mind-numbing noise, and feel the water beating on your back."

Jaime bit his lip playfully. "Do you often swim naked, my lady?"

"Oh, _enough,_" she said, releasing his hand forcefully. But he saw a smile ghosting the corners of her mouth. "I did back on Tarth—but, not much after I flowered—we had more people about Evenfall, then."

"That is why you appeared so _confident_ in the baths at Harrenhal. You are used to walking about naked in the water."

"That—that was not _confidence_, Ser," she began to physically curl inwards, in hopes of protecting her modesty, "I don't walk about naked where people can _see_ me."

"What a pity," Jaime sighed. There was a moment of silence in which he allowed the woman to recover from her embarrassment. When she was straight-backed again, he said, "What of your father? Tell me of him."

Her expression softened as she looked over at the master-of-arms on his toes, attempting to correct Hoster's shoulders, so much higher than his own.

"He never hated me for what I was," she said softly, "I am a 'beast of a woman,' perhaps, but he did not resent me for it. He was generous with his affection and loved me unconditionally. That is something I will never have once he has left me."

Jaime felt his chest grow heavy. "That is not true."

"You are kind, but I do not require shielding." She turned to him with a sad smile. "I am much-acquainted with this world and its distaste for women like me. But my father is a rare man, and all I do I do to please him. I love him dearly."

_There are no women like you,_ Jaime thought, _Only you._ "I do not have such fond memories of my father," he said, "But he was my father, nonetheless."

Brienne lowered her gaze to her hands again, shoulders hunched in sympathy. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"As am I, my lady." Jaime paused, watching the boys stretch underneath the hot sun, their limbs awkward and gangly with adolescence. "Would you take lunch with me, Brienne?"

To his delight she did not hesitate. They rose together from their small, woven chairs. Nobody glanced up at them as they turned to exit the training yard. Jaime led her gently by the upper arm to the arched entrance and then dropped his hand as she walked slowly in front of him. The day seemed to only get brighter. The light hitting her hair turned it a milky blonde and pronounced the brown freckles on her face, which had grown endearing.

They walked through the forest clearing as silently as spirits and reemerged from the shade just as silent. It was a nice quiet, full of meaning. He was struck by his own ability to be so quiet around another person. The thought amused him. As they approached the courtyard, he found himself yet again drawn to words.

"So, you and Ser Hyle—when will the wedding be?" just saying it made him feel like a fool. Hyle was damnably arrogant if he thought he was worth the Maid of Tarth in appearance, gold, or in the bedchamber.

"It-It is not certain," said Brienne stiffly, "He does not know that I've accepted."

A jitter spiked his stomach. "He doesn't know that you've accepted his betrothal?"

"No. I know—I meant to write him," she said as they crossed the cobblestone grounds leading to the western gardens, "But… But after you—you _spoke_ with me, I thought it best to consider your words."

Jaime smirked. "That gladdens me, wench. Let him remain a rejected man. He is a poor suitor for a lady of your station." His hand found her arm again as they careened into the private garden. It smelled heavily of spring. The storm of a few nights ago had battered the flowers and several petals of varying colors still sprinkled the grounds below the hedges and the trees.

A smudge of red caught Jaime's eye. He ambled towards the rosebush encircled by stones. A small rosebud was peeking from its great, leafy cocoon. He seemed to lose his breath as he grazed it with the fingers of his left hand.

"What is it?" said Brienne over his shoulder.

"A rose," he said.

"Oh," Brienne sighed near his ear, "How lovely."

"I have not seen a rose bloom here since I was a boy," said Jaime.

"It is a good omen," she said simply.

He situated his forefinger and thumb under the head of the shy bloom, meaning to pluck it. Brienne stilled his hand with her own, pale fingers contrasting brightly over his own tan fingers. The contact stilled him. He found himself always surprised by her gentleness.

"It is for you, my lady," said Jaime, turning to look at her over his shoulder.

Through a thick red blush she breathed, "Let it live, Ser Jaime. So that we may see it fully grown. A whole bush of your mother's roses."

Jaime's hand fell from the red flower as he turned his body to face her. She stepped backwards when he turned so suddenly. He walked towards her, she walked back. He took another step and she responded with a rote step backwards. When her back straightened against the stony wall, his fingers brushed her cheek. Then he gently tugged the hair at the back of her head, angling it. He met her concerned gaze briefly.

"You are still so innocent," he said before kissing her. Her lips were plump and chapped beneath his own. He felt her jerk back against the wall and he pressed his lips to hers more firmly. When she relaxed, he pulled back. She bore that lidded expression he had come to desire. Her eyes began to widen again as he appraised her, but before she could begin to doubt herself he was kissing her again.

His tongue flitted out and licked her lower lip. Her breath quickened at the contact. He pecked her lips again and then pulled her lower lip in between his teeth. He released her lip, then worried it again, watching it become swollen and red.

"Open your mouth," he said.

She did not know how to comply at first, but when he kissed her again he felt her lips part and his tongue darted into her mouth. Her face heated even more in his palm as he ran his tongue over the front of her teeth. When his tongue delved in again, hers met his forcefully and clumsily and heat coursed through his body like liquid. They spent some moments like that, growing more fevered as they attacked each other's lips. When she first began to suck his tongue his mind had went blank, and so shortly afterwards, he pulled back from her before he became too aroused.

"My lady, you are a quick learner," Jaime smirked, panting slightly.

Her hands rose to cover her coloring face, but he caught one of her wrists and brought it down to her hip.

"A good omen, indeed," he said.

* * *

**There you have it, you lovely people. The first kiss! How exciting. I was not sure I wanted to include it in this chapter or not, but I thought that the setting and the characters called for it. I hope you're pleased. Pretty please leave me a review and let me know what you lovelies think!**

**~Miko**


	6. A Sweet

**Hey, everyone! Here's another chapter for you guys. Thanks for all of your sweet reviews and comments—I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

_Chapter Six: __**A Sweet**_

BRIENNE

So thick. _How could I have been so blind?_

For the past two days Brienne had been consumed with the kiss. It filled her waking thoughts, her dreams, it filled her tongue as she sipped the well's lukewarm water, her lungs as she stuffed her face into her bed's goose-feather pillows. Her whole body shivered when she awoke, again, in the tower at the peak of Casterly Rock; her eyes fluttered inadvertently when she hurried through Joanna's intimate gardens, and she lost her breath if she so much as thought of a rose.

Brienne had hardly slept in the days that had followed their passionate kiss. Her nights were filled with the embarrassment of her inexperience, the skill with which his own tongue had massaged her mouth, and her solid shame. She was so shamefully naïve. A girl, really, groping at a man for affirmation and affection when surely he could not have felt much. _I've projected my own feverish desires upon him,_ she rationalized, _the poor man. Perhaps he does not even know what overcame him—me—who were we, then? In the garden?_

_Cersei._

Brienne did not have the breath to remain at Casterly Rock. Nor did she have the stomach to part too long from Jaime, a man who had so quickly begun to epitomize all that she'd imagined in a great romance. She compromised by spending the length of her days in Lannisport. It was a short ride down the steep slopes of the Rock to the huge port city. Lannisport bustled with diversions, though none substantial enough to tear the dream of warm lips opening beneath her own from her mind.

Lannisport was easily one of the largest and most active cities that Brienne had ever penetrated, a beehive surrounded by a great husk of a wall. She hoped that one day Jaime could show it to her properly, the best city blacksmiths and dressmakers. Naturally, he would never have had any need of them—as lord of Casterly Rock, he was likely to have the best that anyone could offer—but as a child, she wondered, what were his favorite spots? Did he and Cersei ever kiss in that abandoned alcove? She could imagine that, the sunlight layered that spot through the holes in the bricks. Or perhaps he had first touched her in this alleyway, lusty under the naked moon?

Brienne stopped on the street to watch a singer perform the Rains of Castamere. He sat on a low wall with a painted harp surrounded by small children who flitted about him attentively when his voice thrummed especially deeply. His knuckles brushed over the strings lazily, pausing here and there to emphasize the unstated darkness of the piece for the victory-thirsty children. When he finished he did not receive applause but a cacophonous chorus of _again! again! _

_And who are you_

_The proud lord said_

_That I must bow so low?_

_Only a cat of a different coat,_

_That's all the truth I know._

Then, the children: _a coat of gold, a coat of red_

_A lion still has claws_

_And mine are long and sharp, my lord_

_As long and sharp as yours!_

Brienne flipped a coin into his cup. He dipped his head in thanks as she turned to walk away, heart too thick with the thought of Jaime here, as a boy, passing singers on the street, perhaps with Tyrion, perhaps with Joanna, _Cersei,_ during a time of happiness. On every side of her, street vendors thrust goods into her face, all smiling unreservedly. All customers were paying customers, no matter how ugly. They did not take the time to be aghast by her homely visage.

A woman with a thick Braavosi accent held a purple silk to her face, tsked, and then waved her inside with the fluttery gesture of a mother hen. Momentarily curious, Brienne stepped behind the front counter and into the shop's narrow confines. Cloths of all colors were rolled around wooden planks or draped across the ceiling like inverted rainbows. Brienne allowed her fingers to graze a velvet mourning cloth; it looked as if she held a strip of night in her hand.

"Not for you," came the Braavosi voice, "Would look like death."

She followed the woman to the back of the store. Her dark hair was twisted with green ribbon, which fell down her back as she reached for three different rolls of cloth: a dark, crimson red; a deep, navy blue; and a glittering azure. The woman did not smile, but held all three rolls up to her face and then said, nonchalantly, "You buy."

Brienne shook her head. "I am not one to spend coppers on clothes, nor do such lovely colors suit a woman of my complexion."

"You buy," she said again, emphatically, "Red for the lover, Sea for the evenings, Sky for the gardens and the tourneys and the knights." The woman began to cut the cloth pieces to size.

Brienne shook her head. "Not today."

The Braavosi woman did not cease. "You dress like a man, but you are a woman." She eyed her firmly. "You feel as a woman feels, I see it in your blush. In Braavos, I think we like better the differences in a woman. Be wary of these golden men, they don't know what they want until they fuck it. Five silver stags."

The large woman blanched at the older woman's frankness. She hesitated for a few seconds longer, then she reluctantly handed over the five silver coins. It seemed easier than to further insist upon her inability to wear such colors gracefully. The cloth merchant handed her the navy blue, which she'd referred to as "sea" and the azure, which she'd deemed "sky." Brienne draped the cloth awkwardly over her arm.

The Braavosi took the red in her fingers and pressed it lightly to her own face. "The red is extra three silvers, but I give to you for free because I pity you." She laid it over the blues on Brienne's arm, frowning. She stowed the coins in the purse on her hip, and then began to rummage behind the counter. Brienne could distinguish the sound of marbles rolling and cloths being shoved into corners. The Braavosi woman reemerged with a black stick.

"I give this also for free, because it was my daughter's and she died young. Is for the eyes. _Valar Dohaeris._"

Before Brienne could register the comment, the woman had ushered her out of the store, thrusting her olive palm into her lower back until Brienne was twisting, discombobulated, in the middle of the market street. The woman did not bid her goodbye; she was attending another customer by the time Brienne even managed to locate her again. Brienne stowed the black stick in her pocket and continued deeper into the heart of the cobblestoned city.

She wondered when she had first fallen in love with Jaime Lannister. The bear pit? The tubs at Harrenhaal? She couldn't be sure, only that after a certain moment, her affection for him had grown from a trickling stream into a back-beating waterfall, with all the suddenness of a sickness. She passed a spice shop and leather shop, ignoring even the large shop selling hunting dogs and, later, a blacksmith's place with ornately-gilded swords and lavish shields hanging in the window. _I could not hope for a better sword than the one I was given._

_Perhaps all of those gestures were tokens of… Jaime's affections._

The city began to slope downwards as she continued south. When she finally spotted the water, the markets had become scarcer and noon had crested in the sky. She recognized a wine merchant, as she walked, from Jaime's proceedings in the Great Hall. He was wiping his windows down with a green rag as she passed.

Brienne entered a sweet shop when the markets yielded to the sea's wet eyelashes. She purchased a sweet tart hardened by caramelized sugar. When she bit into it, she liked it so much she decided to buy another for Jaime.

The water was less wicked here. The sea was docile, even, under the sky's soft heel. It was almost quiet, save for the gulls that careened around the little shore, and the sound of children splashing not far off. Merchants were docked all along the eastern coast; from where she stood, all of them appeared small and black and faceless. From here she could see the great Lannister fleet, sitting with an idle violence, which stirred her only slightly from her peace. Everything out there appeared asleep. _But,_ she thought, _even the dead wake._

* * *

She considered turning back eight times before she brought her fist up and rapped on the door of his chambers. Instantly a wave of nausea flooded her and she regretted the action. She turned from the door and a hollowness quickened inside of her gut as she heard the twist of the golden doorknob.

She whirled around as Jaime pulled the door open, aware that she was quickly becoming the color of beet juice. He paused as he saw her there, clearly surprised to see her reddening outside his chambers, looking as if she'd just been caught in a trap of her own making.

"Brienne," he said.

"Ser Jaime, I—_good afternoon_," she said, smiling miserably at him. She yanked the hair at the back of her neck nervously.

"Good afternoon," said Jaime, giving her a funny look.

"I-I've just come back to Casterly Rock and…" she trailed off, heart flutters causing her neck to heat rapidly. _And I had to see you? And I needed to know that I didn't dream up that kiss?_ She did not finish the sentence and several seconds of awkward silence hung between them.

"Would you like to come in, my lady?" Jaime stepped backwards, opening the door so that she might enter. She could not find the words, but she stepped inside. The room was much like all the other bedrooms at Casterly Rock, though twice the size and thrice the gold. There were furnishings she was sure could not be his; a ruby-studded, golden jewelry box sat atop a gilded armoire. There was a big, wooden tub in the corner, still filled with water. A desk was situated tangentially to the closed window, which faced Brienne's chambers, piled high with red-velvet cushions. At the center of the room a very large bed commanded most of the attention. It too, held its share of decorative pillows and downy sleeping pillows, and was covered in a specially-made, thick comforter, stuffed with feathers. The whole room smelled of Jaime. It was an intoxicating environment.

"I'm sorry for bursting in like this," said Brienne, suddenly timid.

"I invited you in, my lady," he said simply. He stood with his usual laidback posture, weight shifting to his left hip as he appraised her, his hands clasped behind his back. He seemed to be waiting for her to continue.

"I was in Lannisport," she said dumbly, "I was exploring the city."

"For the past week," said Jaime raising his eyebrows knowingly. "Taking your meals in Lannisport, even."

"Yes," was all she could muster.

He stepped closer to her. "All this without even mentioning it to me. Not that you were required," he shrugged, "But a man does start to worry."

"You knew I was in Lannisport." It was not a question.

"Yes, so I did."

"So why did my lord worry?" her breath hitched as he took another step towards her. She felt tension tightening in her belly.

"Brienne," said Jaime, jerking his head as hair fell near his eyes, "You seemed to have forgotten that right before you took your little vacation, we had shared… _ a moment_ in my mother's garden."

"I did not forget, Ser," she breathed.

"But you ran from me," he said, and her legs began to feel shaky as his hands slid around her hips. They rested on her hip bones. "I'd thought you were enjoying yourself as much as I was."

"I was," she said. Conversation was coming almost inadvertently now. "I did."

"So?" And his face was at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder. His warm breath sent shivers through her stomach, and suddenly her skin felt incredibly sensitive to his heat. His hair tickled her jaw line when his lips ghosted over her collarbone.

"I was confused," she whimpered, and it was the most honest thing that she could have said. Even in this moment, the confusion lingered. The self-doubt, the self-pity, and the self-loathing had not evaporated with the kiss. All of these elements, which she'd allowed herself to ignore as they grew accustomed to the comforts of Casterly Rock, were augmented and shoved forcefully up her throat when he'd kissed her that afternoon.

"About what?" he breathed, but before she could answer he was kissing her softly and she couldn't think. She felt her back flatten against the wall. When his left hand moved up to her waist, her mouth opened with her exhale and his tongue met hers with a slow, burning fire. She flicked her tongue against his and he pressed against her more forcefully. She could feel the pressure of his teeth behind the softness of his lips and she wondered if her own teeth bothered him. When he pulled away to lick her lower lip she was panting heavily.

"I want to," she said, "I want to."

"But?" another kiss, and then he was sucking on her lower lip.

With the little willpower she had remaining, she pulled her lips from him. He looked confused and somewhat concerned. _To him everything probably seems so clear,_ she thought sadly.

"What is this?" she asked him, tenderly grazing his arm.

"A kiss, my lady?" said Jaime, regaining his usual smirk, "Perhaps I was not clear enough the first two times…"

She smiled at him with some shyness and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Brienne wasn't exactly sure how to verbalize her hesitations. She extricated herself from between Jaime and the wall in order to regain some sense of coherency.

She opened her mouth to speak, and what came out was: "I bought you a sweet."

Jaime chuckled from behind her and within moments she felt his chuckle in her shoulder as he kissed her shoulder blade. His arms snaked around her waist and her first thought was that she was dying; no moment in life had been this beautiful.

"I do not want anything to change from this very second," she whispered, and she was not even sure that he heard her, save for the tightening of his arms around her waist. "But if it will, you must tell me now."

Brienne twisted in his hold to look him in the eye. "Cersei," was all that she said.

Jaime's arms loosened around her as he recoiled from the name. She saw tension knitting in his eyebrows as she stared at him. He said nothing, just looked at her with a perturbed expression, frown deepening near his eyes.

"I do not know how you feel now," Brienne said, "But I do know that in the beginning you thought I was a wretch. You _knew_ I was a beast, you reminded me daily of the ugliness of my countenance. I do not know how you came to feel so changed about me. I do not know if you feel differently about me at all… or if… if I remind you of another."

"Why are you saying this?" said Jaime, whose eyes had narrowed in anger.

"I cannot compare to your sister," she muttered, stomach churning at the thought of the delicate pinkness of Cersei's mouth, the glossiness of her skin after a night of passion. "Just the thought of you atop me, saying Cersei's name—Jaime, you don't understand—that would devastate me. If there's a chance of that happening… please don't let me walk into it. If you bear any… _kindness_ towards me, Lord Jaime…"

"Do you often think of me atop you?" Jaime smirked, though his eyes were clearly still heated by Brienne's pleas.

She felt a jitter in her lower belly. "Don't change the subject," she snapped.

"I was in love with Cersei," said Jaime tightly, "More accurately, I was infatuated with an idea of her that did not turn out to be altogether real. I derive no pleasure from obsessing over nothing, nor do I enjoy being played for a fool, Brienne. If I still had feelings for her, I would not be here with you." His arms dropped from her waist and she felt naked and lonely. She crossed her arms, felt herself hunching with insecurity under the suffocating green of his gaze.

_It's so obvious to you,_ Brienne thought, _but not to me._

"What if Cersei became better," said Brienne quietly, "Softer? Lovelier? Kinder?"

"That's not in her character."

"What _if_, Jaime?" she could feel fear welling in her eyes, wetting her eyelashes.

Jaime sighed and rolled back his shoulders, exhaling the tension in his back. He strode past her to the other side of the large bed and stopped in front of the lacquered, redwood bedside table. He snatched up a piece of rolled parchment.

"That's already happened," he said breezily, "According to my uncle anyway."

Brienne glanced warily at the parchment in his hand. "What do you mean, Ser?"

"Cersei's confessed to fucking the many," said Jaime nonchalantly, "They've shaved her from head to toe. And they marched her from her prison all the way back to sweet Tommen, the boy king. It is unfortunate, now everyone knows she's a whore."

"And Cersei…" Brienne began slowly.

"She's taking quite _well_ to penitence," said Jaime grinningly, which suggested every ounce of him believed the opposite to be true, "She has become quiet and demure as a dove. And does it appear I want her now?"

Brienne bit her lip as Jaime's hands slid back into their previous positions on her hip bones. He mimicked her actions, biting his own lip. She nearly jumped out of her skin when his left hand found her arse and he pulled her closer to him, massaging her lower back at the upper curve of her rear. His fingers rimmed the top of her breeches. He curled his fore and middle fingers inside the cloth and pulled her towards him as he backed to the bedside.

Jaime pushed her gently onto the bed, and she was shocked at how she instinctively arched up into him when he leaned atop her. A hot blush coated her freckles as Jaime's face turned increasingly smug. He kissed her feverishly; she gasped as his eyelashes fluttered over her cheek, her jaw. She felt heat pool inside of her when he began to suck at the hollow of her neck.

He grinded into her, and the hardness of his member against her nether regions made her gasp. When he rocked against her hips again, she groaned, and the third time louder still. She heard Jaime's breathing quicken as he gyrated against her and a sudden sobriety gripped her.

"Jaime," she breathed, "Jaime, please stop."

He complied, looking down at her through lust-glazed eyes. "Have I done something wrong, my lady?"

"I… I will not be made a whore," she said quietly. She did not want him to think it was an attack against him so she gripped his thigh firmly, then kneaded it affectionately with her knuckles.

Jaime removed himself from atop her and kneeled beside her. "It is not within my power to make you a whore, Brienne," he said, equally as softly.

"Yes, it is," she retorted. _I gave that power to you a long time ago._ "My desires mirror your own, Ser Jaime… but, this is important to me. I cannot go about this the wrong way. I will never forgive myself."

Jaime kissed her nose. "I would not have taken your maidenhead, Brienne. I would have never forgiven myself either." He kissed her scarred cheek. "Ser Jaime the Chaste."

Brienne smiled up at him, an utter mess of happiness. The bed shifted as Jaime laid down beside her. She turned on her side to face him.

"Come here," he grunted, pulling her closer with his left arm. She tucked her head underneath his chin and draped her arm across his ribs. He squeezed her shoulder and she felt him maneuvering his foot between her knees. Their breathing slowed. She closed her eyes, inhaling his soapy musk. _I must smell like the city._ His heart beat rhythmically against his chest, and she laid against his ribs, listening to its music for minutes and then hours. The light from the western window changed over the backs of her eyelids; the pinks had faded long ago into a sky of pulpy plum. She lost track of time as the night took them. Jaime had long ago dozed off, but she could only bring herself to the cusp of sleep, each time too scared of waking with him gone.

It was needless. When the night had reached its deepest darkness, she heard Jaime's breathing shift. _He's awake,_ she thought sadly. She felt him kiss the top of her head, then slowly pull his arm from beneath her, then his leg from between her moonlight-white thighs. The bed shifted as he rolled off it, and she listened carefully to the sounds of his joints cracking as he stretched. He walked to the other side of the room, opened the door, and exited. A flash of moonlight fell across her eyes for just a moment before he closed the door behind him.

And still Brienne pretended to be asleep. When he'd closed the door, an emptiness sunk through her skin and into her lungs like freezing water. She stretched across the bed, feeling its loneliness. _Does he feel this lonely every night? In this kingly bed, all alone?_ In a few minutes, she found herself dozing fitfully, now eager for the morning to come.

* * *

**For some reason this was the hardest chapter to write **_**ever. **_**I really struggled with many of these scenes. Nonetheless, I think they needed to be written… I hope you guys enjoyed it, in any case. **** Please, pretty please leave a comment and let me know what you're thinking. Thanks so much.**

**~Miko**


End file.
